


Until The End

by Erys



Category: Mystic Messenger (Video Game)
Genre: Angst, F/M, Flashbacks, Hallucinations, Mental Instability, NSFW, Oh btw this might be angsty, POV Alternating, POV First Person, Panic Attacks, Self-Harm, Smut!!!! in chapter 15 for all you sinners out there, Spoilers for some if not all routes, Suicide Attempt, Tags Subject to Change, Trigger Warnings
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-01-10
Updated: 2017-05-16
Packaged: 2018-09-16 14:22:03
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 23
Words: 58,322
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9275894
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Erys/pseuds/Erys
Summary: "The panic began to slowly make itself a home as dead weight in the pit of my stomach, curled up in a deep pocket, settling in as he retreated after his last kiss. I was not braced for the inevitable goodbye. I would never be ready. No amount of time could ever prepare me for this moment."When Seven was here, everything made sense. But now he's gone, leaving his brother and me behind; I don't know where he is or if he'll back, and nothing makes sense now.Warning: This story contains explicit (language, graphic, and sexual) content, and spoilers for 707's route, his after ending, and both secret endings; unfortunately, I cannot guarantee that there won't be spoilers for the other routes at any given time. :c





	1. Goodbye

**Author's Note:**

> **Disclaimer: Sadly, I do not own Mystic Messenger or any of its characters. Although I would not complain of certain ownership. Like, maybe Saeyoung. Maybe Saeran. Maybe both. ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)**  
>     
> Ahhh!! I'm way too deep in this fandom, seriously. I may be a little late to the party, but my love for these characters, specifically a certain bab and one aesthetically similar to him, has not wavered even slightly, it only grows every day! I find myself craving certain interactions and occurrences amongst other things, and decided that the only real way to be truly be satisfied is to write it myself! I waited until I felt confident in my grasp on the characters, and I hope the (eventual) characterizations are appropriate. Thank you for reading, and I hope this story eventually works its way into the heart and feels of others as it already has for me. This is my first fanfiction - not just MM, but ever!  
>   
> I am currently writing in the first person, as it is a personal preference not only for writing, but for immersion, so I hope it is effective. I present to you my overflowing thoughts into words that are finally on paper! Also, for the record, I have got it _bad_ for both angst and fluff. This will become apparent soon enough!  
>   
>  I think I have rambled on enough. I'll let the story speak for itself. Please don't be shy - your comments and suggestions are welcome! Enjoy!

“I love you,” Saeyoung says. We are standing by the front door to the bunker, his duffel bag hanging from one arm and me hanging from the other. He is leaving. This will be the first time we spend apart since so many months ago, when we were reunited with Saeran, and finally together at last. How many days has it been now? I can’t be sure. Saeyoung makes the time pass like seconds. 

 

“I love you,” he says again, one of his hands now in my hair, his fingers grouping together strands to entangle themselves in, and I melt into his touch. A touch that I absolutely took for granted even in all the time we had been together. Every spot that he comes in contact with becomes engulfed in flames. His eyes wander from my own distractedly, intrigued by his fingers intertwining with locks of my hair. I close my eyes and marvel at the feeling of his hands on me, however soft, however innocent.

 

They flutter open as Saeyoung’s lips brush against the very edge of my mouth. I sigh, almost contently. He rests his forehead on mine, and we breath in each other’s air. I have to fight with my lungs to work properly; they are threatening to fully cease functioning at any moment. My heart on the other hand, does the opposite, and accelerates well beyond overdrive; however, it too is seemingly prepared to stop abruptly by overworking itself to the point where it just doesn’t work anymore. He has to feel my bounding pulse in such close proximity, and if he can’t feel it, he definitely hears it. It's deafening in my ears. It is the only sound in the world.

 

No, that isn’t right. The only sound in the world is Saeyoung’s somehow imperturbable breathing. He's still here. And we are the only two people in the world. I feel his bag drop to the floor beside me. His hands snake up my hips and settle under my shirt, a feather-light touch against my lower back. His skin on mine. I don’t know how long we stand like this; I am far too mesmerized by the heat emanating from his body, and our contiguity. We exist only to each other.

 

Here I stand, in the hardest moment of my life, before the only man I’ve ever loved. The man that is my home. The first breath after drowning. The sun after living in the dark for so long. An uncomfortable unease stirs deep in my core: knowing that there is not a guarantee that he will return home to me in one piece, alive, is consuming me.

 

But this is an unreasonable, irrational fear… right?

 

He's about to leave. He has no choice, or they'd come after us. He is going to some place, with some agenda, on some mission. All details are unbeknownst to both of us, except for an inescapable fate regardless: the possibility of a bad outcome.

 

And this possibility, however slight, is plaguing me. The fact that there is a possibility at all is not okay. My hazel eyes bear into his honey-colored ones, and I know that my fear is not arbitrary in the slightest. There's more than a possibility – there is a likelihood. Looking at Saeyoung is all it takes to reinforce that. This is something that can’t be distinguished from an indifferent gaze unless you have stared into a pair of eyes as much as I did his. Very subtly, his eyes shift, and they cloud over with the same incomprehensible fears that I feel. 

 

There is one way in which we are polar opposites: Saeyoung is much more composed and reserved than I could ever dream of being. I'm an open book, too vulnerable; I feel very easily, and express it very easily. A sudden itch pricks at my nose and my eyes, a telltale sign that tears are potentially forming. _No, no, no_. I told myself that I would not cry. But his eyes suddenly become particularly shiny, and we simultaneously break eye contact. And at this moment, we are one and the same.

 

In one swift movement, my body is pressed up against his, and my face naturally nestles into the crook of his collarbone, his head in my hair. This is it… _deep breath_. This is it. I fail miserably at the deep breath; instead, my respirations quicken, bordering dangerously on the edge of anxiety. Focus. _Focus_. I cannot hyperventilate. Not now. I cannot forget how to breathe in this moment that he needs me to be strong, more than he ever has. My heart thumps against my ribcage, obnoxiously loud, threatening to burst out of its confinement. My whole body briefly floods with warmth, and then everything goes ice cold. Trembling in his arms, I know that I will lose my composure at any second. “I love you.” His whisper is as soft as the breath that grazes my scalp.

 

Saeyoung pulls away to press his forehead to mine again, his eyes closed this time. I inhale his scent, breathing him in, memorizing the texture of his face and the heat wafting from it. He adjusts his positioning, ever so slightly, and his lips touch mine. It's gentle, our lips parted slightly, and my tongue tingles at the salty-sweet taste of Honey Buddha Chips on him. He draws back by a fraction of an inch, and my breathing hitches.  


 

He kisses me again, once. “I love you.”

 

Twice. “I love you.” 

 

Three times. “I love you.” 

 

And then the panic begins to slowly make itself a home as dead weight in the pit of my stomach, curled up in a deep pocket, settling in as he retreats after his last kiss. I'm not braced for the inevitable goodbye. I will never be ready. No amount of time could ever prepare me for this moment.

 

Slowly our bodies separate, and every centimeter of space between us is agonizing. Not letting go of my hand, Saeyoung reaches down to pick up his bag off the ground, and slings it back over his shoulder. I wince, reality slapping me in the face. He smiles sadly down at me, and a crippling pain rips through my core, expanding forever outward.

 

“I love you,” he says, and it's the most obvious thing in the world. 

 

My panic is now borderline hysteria, unfathomable, and I silently plead with him one last time, throwing everything I know at him: the desperate clinging to his arm, the infallible puppy dog eyes, the unequivocal telepathy that we have developed. But I know deep down that it's all in vain, and he knows it, too.

 

“I love you too,” I finally manage to choke out. My voice comes in a hoarse whisper, but I hurriedly spew out a frenzied slew of words, like I will never speak again. “I would tell you to do your best, but you know and I know, that your best is more than enough. All I can ask is for you to be safe. Please be safe and come back home to me. To me… to Saeran. We need you.” My hand shakily squeezes his as tightly as it can, and I bring it to my lips, planting kisses all over it. “I love you. I love you more than anything in the universe,” I speak into his hand, my lips shaping themselves over and around each curve, each finger, leaving my mark there for as long as it will linger. 

 

“I love you.” I look up at him one last time, holding his hand to my cheek like it's illegal to let go, until, eventually, a lifetime later, we release each other. This moment is unparalleled in the sense of the impossible; it stops time.

 

And time only resumes when he delicately caresses the side of my face that I’d just held his hand against, and I gravitate into his tender touch.

 

“Wait for me,” Saeyoung says, barely more audible than the gentlest whisper. But still, his voice breaks. And I do too. My face is still tingling. And then he is gone.


	2. Cyan

_Hand in hand, Saeyoung and I strolled through the courtyard in the center of the hospital grounds. Naturally, Jumin had referred us to – and paid for – the best hospital in the country. Just as naturally, it was breathtakingly beautiful. We had just finished Saeyoung’s weekly physical therapy appointment._

 

_And weekly visit with Saeran. Unfortunately, he had been asleep the entire time – or at least, he pretended to be. Saeran never spoke to us. Hell, he never even acknowledged that we were there. When he was awake, he spent every moment idly gazing out the window. His room was on the top floor, with a view overlooking the city and felt as though it was sitting in the clouds. Even though his expression always remained indifferent, there was an air of contentment in the room whenever he watched the clouds drift by in the cyan sky._

 

_Saeyoung came to a halt before the fountain, and released my hand to perch himself on the edge of it. I watched him follow the pattern of swirls in the water, around and around, around and around. My heart swelled with admiration as I recognized the same face he wore whenever he was concentrating on something. Our relationship was still fresh, and very new to both of us. His prominent red hair glinted with a hint of russet at this angle under the sunlight, also bringing to life a very light dusting of freckles across his skin. He was beautiful._

 

 _Basking in my appreciation of this man before me was soon lost in favor of him tugging on my arm, looking up at me. I sat down beside him. I knew he was deep in thought about something, but I also knew not to pry. He was always preoccupied with thoughts lately, and understandably so. Jumin had also recommended a therapist to him, but Saeyoung insisted it was not necessary._

 

_I continued to watch him expectantly, waiting for him to speak without the pressure of my probing. I could be relentless. I could be convincing. But whatever he was itching to say would eventually be conveyed in the right words once he formed them properly, and was ready to speak._

 

 _I had just begun to relax, my chin resting on his shoulder, when he finally spoke in a shaky voice. His words startled me in my absentminded state._

 

_“Wh-what did you just say?” I asked, not trusting my sense of hearing in my stupor. The confirmation was necessary. I tended to drown out sounds that did not have my undivided attention._

 

_Saeyoung cleared his throat, this time his eyes beseeching mine. We stared at each other for an indefinite amount of time until he spoke again, in a much more confident voice than before. My eyes trailed to his lips, watching them wrap around the words that slipped past them, just to be certain. “Move in with me.”_

 

_The world stopped spinning. My eyes widened in bewilderment. Yup, I had heard correctly the first time. My mind flooded with thoughts, outweighing the pros and cons of this proposition without my urging it to._

 

_Could I live with Saeyoung? We were pretty content in our current arrangement; I did not live very far from him as it was. We saw each other every single day. But could I… live with him?_

  


_This upcoming fall, I would be starting grad school, and the panicky, existential crisis student in me was raring to reemerge. I had just graduated from university with my degree, but knew deep down it wasn't enough for me. My dreams had no limits. Most importantly, I couldn’t afford any distractions. Sure, at home, Saeyoung was usually entirely absorbed in something or other, work related, and that was fine. But when he wasn’t working, he was hyperactive, true to the 707 character I was initially introduced to. And he was snuggly, clingy, affectionately adorable – which I loved. But I had only been exposed to it for a couple of weeks: and I had been on break from college the entire time. I wasn’t sure to what extent I could handle it once school required my undivided attention again. I had never been so seriously invested in something or someone else throughout my entire education. This thought instilled a slightly nagging discomfort in me._

 

_Aside from that, I had heard horror stories from friends about significant others that moved in together, specifically before marriage; how they got sick of each other quickly, how the relationships fell apart. I didn’t want to think about that. The notion alone pained me so much that I went numb. It had been less than a month, but I already knew, with absolute certainty, that I could not live without this man. So I should trust in our relationship, right? That meant that I should be able to_ live _with him, right? I wanted to be with him every second… right?_

 

_And then my mind wandered back to his… snuggly… clingy… affectionately adorable self, and the prior discomfort before was forgotten to the warmth that filled me. Unending hugs and kisses. Falling asleep in his arms. Waking up in the middle of the night with him beside me, waking up to that face, and tousled mop of red hair… every single day. Could we beat the system? Could this solidify our relationship, offer a sense of security that was nonexistent before?_

 

_I thought of home: the airy, light apartment, walls and tiled floor all white, and filled with dark wood and leather furniture. It had a very clinical, clean feel. It was in Jumin’s building, decorated to the tastes of him and his designers. Not mine. It wasn’t me. I barely ever touched anything in the kitchen, made up of white granite counter tops and stainless steel everything, afraid to taint it with a single fingerprint, even though Jumin sent the maids to me daily. The maids... I chuckled. I’d never had a maid in my life, and never thought for a moment I would ever want or need one._

 

_And then I thought of what could be home: Saeyoung’s bunker. Decorated with Honey Buddha Chip bags and the contents of several toolboxes and computer parts and endless articles of clothing, all scattered across the floor. The kitchen and its bare cupboards that I could fill and make my own, preparing meals for two every single day. The messes that I would have to clean, all by myself. No maid in sight. Was this me?_

 

_I bit my lip. I was at a crossroads. And then suddenly... at the forefront of my brain, dominating every single thought and daydream and memory, was Saeyoung’s face. He was just... there. He existed, and he was mine. Everything else long forgotten, I knew everything that I needed to know._

 

_“Yes,” I answered at last._

 

_His reaction came in slow motion, and then all at once. The next thing I knew, I was yanked up – pretty viciously for someone who only had half the strength in his dominant arm – and lifted off the ground. Saeyoung had swept me off my feet, any sounds he was making muffled by my chest, where his face was buried. And then he was swinging me around in a circle on the spot, his head thrown back. And out of his mouth came the sound that ascertained I had made the right choice._

 

_Saeyoung’s laughter started as a subtle rumble in his chest. It rippled through him, vibrating his body, starting in his core and rising in his throat until finally it was released. It was a delicious sound, echoing in the air around our heads. It reverberated as we spun, filling the courtyard, bouncing off the walls of the hospital, resoundingly shouted to the cyan heavens. His arms tightened around me securely in the sense I had hoped for from him. This moment was eternal._

  


* * *

  


The bunker is eerily quiet without Saeyoung. I miss the clacking of keys and clicking of his mouse. I miss the exasperated groans and frustrated grunts. I miss the crinkling of chip bags, and the pop and hiss of soda cans being opened. I miss his high-pitched, off-key singing, the subsequent _oomph_ escaping from his lips as I whack him playfully with a pillow, and the laugh that ensues. God, I miss his laugh most of all. The sound fills every void that has ever existed, and the void that I feel now is impossibly expansive.

 

I know I have to keep myself busy, otherwise I will mope, and I don’t mope. There are plenty of things to do… I think. I fold several loads of laundry. I scrub down the shower and tub. I rearrange the kitchen cabinets. I alphabetize the bookshelf. I’m about to open the sock drawer and organize them by color when I stop. I have never matched my socks in my life, never mind sorted them by color. I know I’m reaching, and I sink into the couch, defeated.

 

It’s twilight. The sun is casting an orange glow over every surface in our living room. This is my favorite time of day. It’s when Saeyoung and I would settle down after a long day; his normally consisting of work, and mine normally consisting of studying. I find it to be therapeutic.

 

I realize I have not looked at any study materials all day. I wander over to Saeyoung’s computer room; our computer room. I have my own desk in there now, littered with notes and textbooks, taking up the entire length of the wall opposite his. We installed it the day after I moved in. Saeyoung had also insisted on installing a brand-new, top of the line desktop computer with four monitors, despite my protests, having bought a laptop just a few months prior. But he is just as stubborn as I am. And so I had a new setup. When we were both in here, we lost ourselves in our work. This was an unspoken agreement between us.

 

My fingertips lightly traced across the surface of Saeyoung’s desk, brushing over the keys that he had touched only hours prior. I notice his hoodie is thrown haphazardly over the back of his computer chair. I lift in to my face, pleased to find that it still contains traces of his scent. I find comfort in this, wrapping it tightly around my shoulders, my eyes drifting close as I breathe him in.

 

I’m roused from my trance at the sound of a loud beep, signaling that the door to the bunker is opening, allowing entry to someone. And so it does with a mechanical creak. My heart stops at the sight of the back of someone’s head, topped with distinct, bright red hair. The door slams closed. I hold my breath in a bout of wishful thinking. I can’t help the mild twinge of disappointment when he turns around, and I’m greeted with cyan eyes instead of gold.


	3. Selfish

_"I know I'm asking this of you very suddenly, and it's a lot to take in all at once," Saeyoung said. He had come over to my apartment to watch me attentively as I danced around, packing up my things. I had agreed mere days earlier to move in with him. But the skip to my step quickly vanished at his latest proposition. Saeyoung had always kept me on my toes, endlessly catching me by surprise: it was one of the many things I loved about him. But this… this was beyond any comprehension I was capable of, especially now._

 

_I paused at my sock drawer, gazing down into it absentmindedly. I never matched my socks. I couldn’t be bothered; this was evident in the mess that was before me. Ugh. Distractions. I pulled the drawer from its track and dumped it into the box I was currently packing, containing various other undergarments. I tried to concentrate harder on what Saeyoung had just said to me, and suddenly packing became busy work, attempting to further distract me from my thoughts. I never spoke, but he didn't either. His eyes simply followed me around the apartment, as I collected this and that, boxing it up appropriately._

 

_Every so often I would glance at him, but looked away before he caught me. Each time, I pinpointed another detail on him that made me feel even more uneasy. The angry red laceration above his right eye, stitched together. His skin painted different shades of yellow and purple and blue: the bruises on every visible surface of his skin, all in various stages of healing. The ankle that was securely wrapped in a brace, having been popped out of place sometime amidst running away. The arm that still hung in a sling from when he had been_ shot _. I was surprised that this thought came out in an angry sputter, the mouth of my brain not quite being able to form the word without a bitter aftertaste._

 

_But he was alive. That was all that mattered, right? That was all I cared about. I couldn’t live without him. I bit my lip, considering what he had said to me once again. An unpleasant shiver dominated my body, but only I felt this; my face revealed nothing._

 

_Eventually, I had nothing left to pack, and I could no longer use it as an excuse to avoid him and his proposal. He had been sitting patiently on my bed the entire time. I lowered myself down next to him. I couldn’t meet his eyes, but I touched my hand to his._

 

 _"I know what you must be thinking, how you must be feeling," he started again gently, but I interrupted him immediately with a fierce shake of my head. He stopped talking instantly, and finally we made eye contact. His golden eyes regarded me sadly._

 

_"Actually," I said, "I'm not sure you do." His expression was puzzled, but he waited for me to continue. "Do you think I'm afraid of him?" Silence. More confusion._

 

 _"I am more concerned about what happened to you than I am for myself," I finally admitted. “I’m not afraid.” Saeyoung opened his mouth to speak, but I didn't give him the chance. "I don't want to say I 'understand', but I... well, I understand," I elaborated, however vaguely. "What I mean is, I understand the circumstances. Think about the state of mind that he was in, the influence of drugs on his body... amongst other things." I could get away with vagueness here. These details were better left unsaid. "We can’t pretend to be inside of his head, Saeyoung. We don’t know exactly what happened, we don’t know what he thought, or what he’s currently thinking, or feeling.” I looked down at his hand, and traced a couple of light scars on his fingers. “But just because I’m being openminded doesn't mean that I won't always be wary, overly cautious. It's human nature. I don't think that will change." I rested my head against his shoulder, and found that he was trembling. "I worry, because I don’t know what I would ever do if I lost you. I came way too close, and I never want to be there again. It will always be that way."_

 

_I drew back, and Saeyoung was watching me intently... maybe trying to comprehend, to see it like I did. His expression didn’t give anything away. “The bottom line, Saeyoung, is that he is your brother,” I stated, choosing my words carefully. “He is now a very significant part of your life, and that makes him a part of mine too. Let’s do whatever it takes.” He responded with nothing by a gentle squeeze of my hand, and that said everything he needed to say._

  


* * *

  


The presence of another person is welcoming and comforting, after being alone with my thoughts for most of the day. Under normal circumstances, I didn't mind in the slightest, being my own company. But today had been especially difficult.

  


"Saeran," I greet him warmly, approaching him as he wiggles out of his jacket. His cheeks were flushed and his hair was windswept, a surefire indication that he had been driving with either the windows open, or the top down. Sure enough, with a clatter, a pair of car keys fall from his hand and onto the end table by the door. I ignore the dull pang that works its way through me as I recognize the keys as belonging to one of Saeyoung's convertibles, and shake my head at myself. I’m pathetic. “How was your drive?” Driving mindlessly was a favorite pastime of Saeran’s. This was an unspoken yet obvious fact. It was on the list of similarities between the brothers that were gradually becoming more numerous and apparent. 

  


”It was fine,” Saeran says matter-of-factly, his eyes sweeping the entirety of the too-clean apartment. His brow furrows ever so slightly. He’s noticed. “Where’s that idiot brother of mine?”

  


“Oh…” My voice trails off, along with my eyes, looking anywhere but at him. Apprehension dawns on me. He doesn’t seem to remember. “He, uh. Today was the day.” Saeran regards me with a hint of puzzlement in an otherwise blank expression. I puff my cheeks out, and expel air in obvious distress. “Um. He left this morning.” I glance up at Saeran through my bangs, watching as it clicks, and something else – Regret? Melancholy? – flashes across his face.

  


“That… was today?” Saeran’s hand flies to his hair, running his fingers through it, catching in the tangles caused by the wind. Is his hand shaking? “Fuck… fuck,” Saeran swears, and I’m taken aback by the sudden profanities. He and Saeyoung are constantly bantering, and Saeran always reciprocates with playful name-calling. But that’s all it is: teasing. So I’m surprised whenever he curses, as it’s particularly out of character for him. He mutters something else under his breath, frustrated, something I can’t hear. He glances up and catches my lingering expression, and his face softens slightly, but he looks sheepish. “I just… I kind of wanted to be here.” He looks away uncomfortably. “To say goodbye,” he admits. His face a shade paler than it was before. My realization then is abrupt: I am selfish. I was never alone. I am not the only one potentially losing the most important person to me. He is too.


	4. Breakthrough

_Saeran spent the vast majority of his time in isolation. He was content, if nothing else, in solitude, avoiding reality, steering clear of his brother and that... woman. There were distasteful memories tied to her existence. The worst part? She was actually sickly sweet, eternally cheerful, with a singsong voice that made you want to listen. Except he didn't want to listen. He didn’t care. He wanted to be alone._

  


_Today, though, on a particularly sweltering July day, his room was too stuffy and uncomfortable to quarantine himself in. He was tucked away inconspicuously in a corner of the living room, keeping a safe distance, hiding behind his laptop. Sometimes Saeyoung gave him simple jobs to fiddle around with, well beneath the caliber of his capabilities, but they were a welcome distraction. It kept his hands and mind busy._

  


_And then she was there. Over the top of the laptop, Saeran watched her dart around the bunker with narrowed eyes. She flitted from place to place like a bird: from the bedroom, donned in one of her ostentatious, colorful sweaters; to the kitchen, disposing of the remnants of Saeyoung's hasty lunch preparation; to the bathroom, arms full of cleaning products, a determined look plastered on her face. In between every action, and whenever she got the chance, she popped into Saeyoung's computer room, peppering little kisses on him or bending over his shoulder, whispering something in his ear as she pulled his headphones aside. The ghost of a smile never left his lips, and sometimes he leaned back into her touch. All the while his fingers never stopped typing furiously; his concentration never dwindled. Interesting._

  


_When he finally took a break, he accompanied her to the kitchen. There, she sported a ruffly pink apron, her long hair piled messily on top of her head. She rummaged through a drawer. Poked her head in the refrigerator or cupboard. Stirred something on the stovetop. They prepared dinner together, moving in synchrony, not unlike two people that knew each other very well, and for a very long time; there were elusive brushes up against one another, shy smiles shot across the room, the occasional kiss on the cheek or top of the head. Their cheeks were even tinged the same rosy shade._

  


_Saeran was so engrossed in the details that his trance was only broken when she appeared before him, waving a hand playfully in front of his eyes. When he snapped out of his stupor, she was smiling at him. The kind of smile that touched her eyes. She had a dimple in her right cheek._

  


_"Welcome back to Earth," she said with a giggle that rang like a bell, and he could only stare at her. She was teasing him, true to character, and he had no idea how to react. But the brightness in her eyes never faltered, not even for a second, even when he met them with what he could only imagine was an icy, callous glare._

  


_"I made beef stew for dinner," she said. Oh, she was talking again. Saeran cocked his head, regarding her indifferently. "It's a recipe I learned and tweaked during my time in America. One of my friends that I met there, she went to culinary school and taught it to me, along with many others," she continued. Was she rambling? Being friendly? He gazed at her fixedly, taciturn. "I promise it's edible," she said brightly. Jokes. Hmph. He nearly snorted, but caught himself. He thought he noticed her lips purse, very, very slightly, imperceptible had he not been paying excessive attention to every detail of her face._

  


_"Well, it's there if you would like some," she said simply, after a long pause. Defeated, she stood up. A dismissal from the conversation, but a kind-hearted offer at that. She returned to the kitchen without another word._

  


_Huh. She hadn't probed. She made an attempt, but not an overbearing one, and was on her way. It was almost... refreshing, compared to Saeyoung and certain others. Saeyoung was… well, annoying was not even the word. He was relentless. Inexorable. And Yoosung was the same, but in a different way; he texted every single day, pushing a friendship that Saeran was 99% certain he couldn't be bothered with._

  


_But this... This was strange. He had tried to kill this woman. It all began with her benevolent act toward a stranger. He was cruel, and he tricked her. Her innocent, harmless, vulnerable self. He broke into somewhere that was supposed to be safe for her, tried to whisk her away to somewhere that would have definitely harmed the pretty little hairs on her head._

  


_Pretty? Saeran dismissed the thought before his brain had even finished conjuring it. But he continued to observe her, and her fluid movements around the kitchen. She was always keeping busy. She began to clean up the mess she and Saeyoung had made – who, of course, had retreated back to his computer room, a steaming bowl and Dr. Pepper in tow. She was too good for him. Or maybe she was perfect for him, just the kind of person he needed in his life. Saeran scowled at the next thought that popped into his head, and got to his feet with a huff._

  


_"Oh!" She jumped about a foot in the air, her hand flying to her chest, and he very nearly chuckled. So absorbed in the task of washing dishes, he had startled her, coming up behind her unexpectedly. "What's up, Saeran?" She bounced back quickly from the shock, and beamed up at him. That damn face-scrunching smile. That damn dimple._

  


_Staring intently at a spot on the ground that suddenly became fascinating, Saeran remained reticent. Her smile lingered, unwavering, until she turned around and continued washing the dishes._

  


_If he hadn't surprised her before, he absolutely did now: reaching out, he took the plate she had just finished rinsing, and began to dry it meticulously. Her eyes widened by a very minuscule fraction, but he ignored any reaction that he had fostered, continuing with his fastidious behavior as though it were the most ordinary thing in the world. Still, he was hyperaware of her sideways glances at him, and that persistent, cheeky smile of hers._

  


_And then they were finished. "Thank you," she said softly, and they made fleeting eye contact. As soon as it happened it was over, and she scuttled off to her own corner of Saeyoung's computer room._

  


_Saeran exhaled sharply, a breath he did not even realize he had been holding._

  


* * *

  


Saeran and I coexist in equanimity. Who we each love the most just happens to be the same person. The three of us had found a comfortable rhythm as apart of each other’s lives, and fell into it. Every so often, Saeran would interject with yet another sarcastic remark, or react a little more than just smirk at a joke that one of us made. It was progress. Our lives were by no means perfect yet, nor were we at the place we would ultimately stay. But Saeran was opening up at his own pace. It was better without the poking and prodding. He would break free of his comfort zone in due time.

  


I feel as though I am finally glimpsing past the wall Saeran keeps himself heavily guarded with. For the first time ever, he and I are on the same page. This sensation is unfamiliar and foreign to me.

  


He’s not looking at me; instead, he’s fiddling with his fingers, clawing at his nails. I recognize the nervous habit immediately, and make a mental note of yet another similarity to add to the list. I don’t spend enough time with Saeran alone to familiarize myself with his habits as I am now, but recent happenings have made me acutely cognizant. 

  


He’s still fidgeting. Before I can stop myself, I reach out and delicately place my hand over his. He freezes. Immediately, I kick myself, thinking that I’ve crossed a line. Of course I have. What possessed me to think that he would want me to touch him? I’m ready to withdraw my hand when I am staggered to see that instead, he visibly relaxes; tension seems to evaporate from him almost instantly. His hands are warm, and surprisingly smooth. I realize that I can count on one hand the number of times I've made physical contact with him since we started living together.

  


Saeran is the first to pull away, but he doesn’t seem to do it because he feels uncomfortable or unnerved, or so I assume. He saunters into the kitchen to rummage through the cupboards, and we reconvene there. We busy ourselves making dinner in our usual comfortable silence, when our arms unexpectedly graze one another’s. This startles even me, as he is always very careful to ensure we never touch. My earlier assumption is proven to be correct when he doesn’t even flinch, or suddenly jerk back with the contact, as he has every single time in the past. 

  


I carry my plate to sit where I normally do, when he surprises me a third time: rather than sulk off to his room like any other night, he sits across from me at the table. I’m gaping at him when he looks up, and my cheeks are aflame. I’m about to avert my gaze when he does, and finally he speaks.  


  


“Do you think we did the right thing?” his voice is quiet, and he’s not looking at me anymore. "Letting him go." His question hangs in the air for a moment, and I don’t say anything, certain he has more to add. He absentmindedly twirls his noodles around his fork. “I drove for a long time today. I thought a lot about him going off on this mission… and came home almost prepared to talk him out of it. I needed to understand why exactly he felt the need to endanger his life. After everything. For what… for what?”

  


“He had to,” I respond softly, hating that I had to say this out loud. “Trust me, this is the last thing I want to admit. But they were threatening all of us. He went because he thought he could save us. Saeran, I begged him last night to stay. I begged.” Tears prick at my eyes at the memory. Less than 24 hours ago, he was here. “You know how stubborn he is. He wasn’t going to change his mind, and I was just hurting him more with my pleading than I was helping. He’d already made up his mind. I was only making it harder for him to go.” Saeran scrutinizes my face. Silence rings in the air between us as he processes what I’ve said. I can't tell what he's thinking.

  


He gives me a knowing guise, and I barely have time to wonder if he has more to say before he dismisses the conversation with a curt nod, bending over his plate and hiding behind the hair that falls in front of his face.


	5. Intoxicated

_I forced my heavy eyelids apart. I sleepily rubbed my eyes, squinting through the dark at the clock on the nightstand. It was just after three in the morning._

  


_Groaning, I wondered what could have possibly startled me awake. I was the world’s heaviest sleeper. I was just about to roll over and bury my face in my pillow to go back to sleep when I became a touch more awake, and reoriented myself to my surroundings. I was in Saeyoung’s bed._

  


_And it was Saeyoung’s snoring that had woken me up._

  


_I blinked once, twice, and rolled over onto my other side, in awe at the sight I was greeted with. If Saeyoung wasn’t precious in the daytime, he absolutely was now. His lips were parted slightly, a soft snore escaping every other second, his eyelashes fluttering the tiniest bit with every exhale. His features were perfectly serene with his face relaxed like that: there was no sign of any stress or strain evident during the day, no dark tint surrounding his eyes. I wanted to touch him, but I was unwilling to break the reverie. He let out a mellow sigh in his sleep, and I was unable to resist any further. I placed a hand lightly on his chest, covering the shadows formed by the alignment of the moon through the skylight above the bed. I could feel his heart beating. His next snore was cut off abruptly, and I froze, certain that I’d woken him up. He stirred beneath my hand, and I didn’t dare breathe in that moment._

  


_Saeyoung shuffled under the bed sheets, his eyes still closed, repositioning his body to a seemingly more comfortable position on his left side, facing me. His breathing evened out, and I guessed that he didn’t wake up after all. I began to relax and resumed my observing of his chest rising and falling, when suddenly, both his arms slipped around either side of my hips, and pulled me to him. I scrutinized his face, positive I’d see a flicker of life, something signaling that he was awake, but there was nothing. And then, his snoring resumed. I couldn’t help the smile that crept onto my face, and I kissed him gently on the part of his neck that was exposed and accessible to me. He breathed a sigh of contentment, and I nuzzled my face against his bare skin._

  


_When I opened my eyes next, the sun was beaming through the skylight. I was still pressed up against Saeyoung’s body, and his grip on me had not lessened. His skin was slightly clammy, likely due to the stifling covers and our bodies touching. He was naturally warm, and our combined body heat only exacerbated the temperature in the bed. Still, I curled up against him, unaffected by something as trivial as heat, and a slightly sticky boyfriend. Unlike last night, this shift in movement was enough to rouse him._

  


_He watched me through a lidded gaze, speaking nothing, but his expression revealing it all. His elation radiated from the crooked smile on his face. “Good morning, sleepyhead,” he said cheerfully._

  


_“You’re one to talk,” I retorted. “I’m the one who has been watching you sleep.”_

  


_“Watching me sleep, huh? Isn’t that my job?” He raised an eyebrow, and winked at me. I swatted at him playfully, and he gave my sides a squeeze._

  


_“I mean, what else was I supposed to do? Someone’s snoring kept me awake all night,” I told him._

  


_“Whaaaaat?” he said, sitting upright suddenly, his eyes wide. “You can’t be talking about me! I don’t snore! Is there someone else in this bed that came uninvited?” He dramatically whipped his head from side to side, looking all around the room._

  


_“Oh no, it was definitely you,” I told him, trying to keep my face as straight as possible. “You should get that checked out. I’m surprised you didn’t wake yourself up with all that noise.”_

  


_Saeyoung’s face was incredulous, and he theatrically flopped back against the pillow, a hand to his forehead. “What’s going to happen to us? I guess you’ll just have to sleep on the couch!”_

  


_I clicked my tongue, appearing to look deep in thought. “That’s a good idea,” I said, “I was thinking that I should just move back home.”_

  


_“Oh, no, you don’t,” he said, and he snatched me before I could react, squeezing me impenetrably. “Not if you can’t get away!” He laughed as I wriggled in his arms, and planted a remarkably wet kiss on my forehead._

  


_“Ewww! Cooties!” I cried out, struggling more against his impassable grip._

  


_“Cooties?! Such a dangerous epidemic! Fear not! The Defender of Justice is here to save you!” Saeyoung leaned forward and showered me with kisses, like it was a crime to leave any part of my skin untouched._

  


_“God Seven! My knight in shining armor! You saved me!” I cheered when he pulled back at last, lips slightly swollen from the repeated contact with my head and face. I firmly pressed my lips to them, unintentionally rough at first. And then the kiss softened, and I melted into his embrace, feeling his smile against my own. I wrapped my arms around his neck as the kiss deepened. He was intoxicating. His teeth nibbled gently at my bottom lip, before his tongue traced over it, clearly begging for entry. Our lips parted, and his fingertips danced over the bare skin on my lower back…_

  


* * *

  


I wake up writhing in the bed sheets, hands frantically groping somewhere beside me, but they meet nothing. I had been searching for him, even in my sleep. I slump back into my pillow. My thumb finds my bottom lip and traces the path that is still throbbing.

  


My eyes flicker over to Saeyoung’s side of the bed. I crawl under the covers to get there, certain for a moment that I would feel warmth – _he was just here!_ – but of course there is none, because he wasn’t. It was a dream. I bury my face in his pillow, maximizing the effort to keep away the sadness and the remorse and the tears that I banished yesterday, all which now threaten to resurface. My body relaxes at his familiar scent. I crave his presence more than ever.

  


“Good morning, Saeyoung,” I whisper into the pillow, and then I hold it to my chest, staring up at the ceiling, through the skylight. The sky is a bright blue, and a lone cloud drifts across my field of view. I silently pray that somewhere, he is looking at the same sky, thinking of me.

  


I have survived my first night without him. Barely... but I have. The night had flown by in a haze of happy dreams of the first morning I woke up with him, and here I am on the first morning without him.

  


I’m sinking into the mattress, and I don’t fight it. I don’t move. The sunlight gradually casts different shadows across the room, eventually telling me that it’s likely early afternoon: the sun is well beyond its peak in the sky. I told myself I wouldn’t mope, yet here I am moping. But I can’t help myself. There is just an air of uncertainty constantly looming that I’m letting it consume me. I lay here for an indeterminate amount of time longer before I force my sorry self out of the bed.

  


There is a dull ache even upon stepping into the shower. The shower that Saeyoung and I share. I find myself using his shampoo – it smells like coconuts. It was the nearest bottle on the shelf one day, thrown hastily into the cart without any thought, and it’s now his trademark scent: it meshes nicely with the sweet, brackish scent of his favorite junk food and the tingly, fruity, syrupy scent of his favorite soft drink that perpetually linger on his skin. I stand under the steady stream of hot water, letting it run down my back, until it turns cold.

  


Saeran isn’t in the living room when I mosey on out there. I presume he’s still sleeping. Last night had ended shortly after we finished dinner. We cleaned up afterwards in silence, and then he ducked off into his room without another word to me.

  


It’s already 3 PM. Maybe Saeran isn’t still sleeping after all. His door is cracked just a tiny bit when I approach it, and I tap softly on it with my knuckles. “Saeran? Are you in there?” No answer. I frown, and nudge the door with my foot. It swings open, revealing to me an empty room. Huh. Well, it isn’t unusual for Saeran to not be home at this time, but he is usually courteous enough to let me know before he goes out. I must have still been asleep when he left.

  


I am just sitting down at my desk, hoping to get in a couple of hours of studying, when my phone goes off. It’s Jaehee.

  


“Good afternoon,” she says warmly, and it’s refreshing to hear her voice. Always a calm and collected under the most stressful situations that I aspire to be like, especially now, her voice soothes me. “I hope I’m not interrupting anything.”

  


“Not at all,” I reassure her. “I was just about to study, but I’m not complaining. How are you?”

  


Jaehee chuckles on the other end of the phone. “Procrastination at its finest, I see. I’m doing well. I only have a couple of moments to talk, but Mr. Han has asked me to invite you to dinner with him tonight, and even… suggested… that I tag along. You could invite Saeran too if you would like. We thought perhaps you might have free time you’d like to fill, what with Saeyoung being away, although I imagine the house is significantly quieter without him around, and maybe you’d like to appreciate that.” She’s chuckling again, and I join in, but mine is half-hearted. What she says is true, but what she doesn’t know is that I can’t wait for this silence to be broken. She also seems to have no idea the circumstances under which he went left, and that it wasn’t something to be excited about.

  


“I’d love to join you both for dinner,” I reply, “but Saeran isn’t home at the moment. I’m not sure when he’ll be back. I’ll shoot him a text, though, and extend the invitation to him.”

  


Jaehee sounds pleased when she speaks again. “Wonderful. Then, we shall see you, if not both of you, later? We will pick you up at 7:30.”

  


“Sounds great, Jaehee. Thanks for thinking of me. Have a good rest of the day at work,” I tell her, and she laughs, making a comment about how that’s impossible, before hanging up.

  


I send Saeran a quick text message, and then I lean back in my chair. I’m grateful to have something to look forward to tonight. Using this as an incentive to get some work done, I bend over my desk and get to it.

  


* * *

  


The restaurant that Jumin has chosen is extravagant and pompous, unsurprisingly so. He pulls out my chair for me, and an elegant silk brushes against the back of my legs as I sit. The plates are probably lined with real gold, and the napkins hand sewn individually.

  


“Thanks for inviting me out,” I say, unsure if Jaehee had relayed my thanks. “It’s nice to have something to do. Saeran never responded to my text message, and wasn’t home by the time I had left. I’m assuming he’s out on a drive, so he’s probably not looking at his phone.” A waiter comes over and fills the wine glass in front of me with a sparkling white-gold liquid, presumably something of Jumin’s choosing. I haven’t had a drink in a very long time, and he knows that I prefer white wine. I take a sip; it’s crisp and refreshing, and slides down my throat easily. Jumin’s taste in wine is impeccable.

  


He gives a succinct nod, lifting his own glass to his lips. “How are you? Faring well without your other half?” He’s teasing.

  


I laugh weakly. “Boy, is it peaceful without him around.” It’s feeble, and the real answer is blatantly obvious on my face, but he doesn’t catch it. Oblivious Jumin. It doesn’t get past Jaehee, though. Her eyes narrow, and I shake my head once, very subtly, in her direction. She gives me a look as if to say _suit yourself_ , and says nothing.

  


“Where has he gone this time?” Jumin asks. “I seem to recall him traveling for work-related tasks many times in the past.”

  


Ugh. He’s making small talk on the very topic that I’d hoped to avoid. “Oh, not far. He’s just a couple of towns over. Easy job this time,” I lie quickly… maybe a little too quickly. Anxiously, I gulp my wine. But Jumin is nodding. I will never take for granted his ignorance ever again.

  


The waiter refills my wine glass before taking our orders. Jumin does not miss an opportunity to be a supercilious corporate heir, and speaks for both Jaehee and me, ordering three of whatever overly fancy dish he plans to indulge in tonight. He commands the waiter in a low, stern voice. Jaehee and I exchange an eye roll.

  


My mind wanders. This is not as effective of a distraction as I had hoped. I wish Saeyoung was here. Looking around the restaurant at the gaudy chandeliers and lurid pearlescent tablecloths, I know we’d laugh together at the pretentious and snooty atmosphere. That is, if we would ever even step foot in a place like this. Which would never happen without Jumin, who’d never eat a meal in a lesser establishment. _Oh, Saeyoung. Where are you right now? What are you having for dinner?_

  


I fretfully down more wine. Jumin still hasn’t noticed, not even after the waiter tops off my glass twice more before our meals even arrive. But Jaehee definitely has. Her lips are pressed together in a tight line, watching me, but she still doesn’t speak. Girl power.

  


I take a bite of whatever it is Jumin has ordered for us. It’s veal, and it’s very tasty. It pairs well with… oh, my wine is gone. I pout briefly. But fear not, the trusty waiter is back. I must have already had half the bottle all on my own. I keep eating, chasing every bite with another sip. Jumin drones on about a project that they are starting at work, with minor input from Jaehee, but her eyes are glazing over. I _ooh_ and _ahh_ in all the right places.

  


_Hiccup!_ Oops. Maybe I’m drinking a little too much?

  


_Hiccup!_ I had better drink more. Consumption of liquids will help cease this darn synchronous diaphragmatic flutter. I drain my glass, and I giggle. How scientifical of me.

  


“How’s the wine?” Jumin says, snapping me out of my tipsy muse. “It was recommended to me when I last visited the winery. The owner called it a new recipe. I thought of you when he told me about it, knowing how much you like white wine.”

  


“It’s very—” _Hiccup!_ “—good.” I chug my water, but only because there’s no wine left in my glass. Hehe. Just kidding. There’s the waiter again.

  


Mmmm, wine. I smack my lips. Jumin is smiling at me; so blissfully unaware. He’s precious. “Jumin, you’re so precious.” Wow. I can’t believe I just said that out loud. He’s speechless, which basically never happens. He’s apparently not believing it either.

  


“I mean, obviously I say that because you were so—” _Hiccup!_ “—preciousssssss, to think of me at the winery.” _Hiccup!_ “It appears that I have already consumed too much.” My words are starting to slur. I beam at him, and he chuckles.

  


He tips his own wine glass at me. “That is what it is here for.” Jaehee sighs next to him, shaking her head in disapproval. She hasn’t said much this whole time. Or has she? …I’m not sure. I’m only paying attention to… ooh, wine. Yes, I’m paying attention to wine. More wine.

  


By the time the waiters are clearing our dessert plates from the table, I have finished nearly 2 bottles. At least, I think? I know I had more than one, but he hadn’t brought out a third. How dare he not bring me a third. He’s fired. Anyway, I try to work this out in my fuzzy brain as leave, and I stumble to the car. Whoops. I trip over the inconveniently placed flat ground as I try to walk and think at the same time. This won’t do.

  


I feel someone supporting me by my upper arm. “Oh, hey,” I regard them brightly. “Watch that ground. It’s being rude!” They manage to drag my disoriented and intoxicated self to the car. Thank god someone opens the door for me, because I have forgotten how to. “Who’s better than you?” I garble, pointing at them. Or at something, anyway. “Nobody!!” I’m rolling in my own laughter. I’m so funny.

  


Right, so, how much did I drink? What’s the number that comes after 1? 2, right? No, wait a second. The number 2 isn’t even a thing. Not in the world of binary. _Grrrrr._ So. I finished one bottle of wine. And then I finished one more bottle of wine. But not one more after that because the waiter was mean and didn’t bring me another one. Yes, okay. That sounds better. I’m satisfied. Well, mostly. Because I still didn’t have that last bottle of wine. And my head hurts from all the math. I wish Saeyoung was here. He’d do all the hard math for me.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Guilty of a little self-indulgence here. I love me some wine!!


	6. Sham

_It was so much easier to pretend._

  


_A lifestyle that he had accepted as his own. Giving in was simple… accepting it as it was._

  


_Losing control over your thoughts… your body… your actions… that’s when life becomes just that… pretending._

  


_It was so much easier to pretend._

  


_When you succumb to the overwhelming influence of psychedelics, you’re lost inside your own head... your thoughts are theirs._

  


_When you succumb to harmful substances inside of your body, you become one and the same. Peyote cactuses… shrooms… methanol… your body is theirs._

  


_When you succumb to the worship of another person, you are theirs. You are no longer living for yourself, but for them… your actions are theirs._

  


_But that was in the past. It was all in the past now…_

  


_He didn't accept it anymore. He was so sick and so tired of hiding behind a mask of a life that was not his. When would his chance come, to be his own person?_

  


_He would never give in again._

  


_But it was so much easier to pretend._


	7. Gone

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *****As of 1/12/17, there is a small addition to the very end of Chapter 4 that is crucial to the upcoming developments that transpire. If you read Chapter 4 prior to this update, I encourage you to take a look at the changes, just to be sure you're up to date! c: 
> 
>  
> 
> ****Warning: The following chapter contains _very_ explicit and graphic content related to hallucinations, psychosis, and suicide. Please be advised and proceed at your own discretion.****

_She always looked at Saeran like she was truly seeing him. To her, he wasn’t the broken victim he felt that others regarded him as._

  


_He stared her down from across the room. There she sat, curled up in the armchair, wearing those mismatched knee-high socks of hers, and that T-shirt too big for her figure, poring over the massive textbook in her lap. Studying._

  


_His hand twitched in his lap. He balled it into a fist and ignored it._

  


_She was always studying. And when she wasn’t studying, she was bustling about the house, doing something else. Cleaning. Organizing. Dancing. Sliding across the tiled floor in her ridiculous socks. Constantly on the move. She had always been like this. Here, in Saeyoung’s bunker. And there, in Rika’s apartment. The saviour’s apartment. The apartment that he, Saeran, had led her to._

  


_The twitch had progressed into a steady quiver now. He squeezed his fist tighter, but it was harder to ignore._

  


_The realization came gradually, and all at once. The girl sitting mere feet away from him was the same vulnerable, naïve, weak little thing that had stupidly followed the commands of a complete stranger, and wound up somewhere where she could get very, very hurt._

  


__"She would get very, very hurt," _sneered a voice in his ear. It was barely audible._

  


_His hand was clenched so hard now that his nails dug into his palms, about to break skin. But the juddering only got worse. And with this came the sudden onset of overwhelming anger. Anger that exacerbated the tremors even further. It was a quaking. A hiss escaped past his gritted teeth, and she looked up at him. Her eyes lingered momentarily on his balled-up fist before she met his eyes._

  


_“Saeran?” she asked, shutting her book almost immediately. She hadn’t even saved her page. In a split second, she was next to him. Her attention was undividedly his. He was not transparent to her. She was truly seeing him._

  


__"Tsk, tsk, I wouldn’t do that if I were you." _The voice was back, thick with scorn._

  


__Vulnerable. Naïve. Weak. __

  


_And then all at once, there were infinite voices, and they were deafening._

  


"It’s simple." 

  


"Just reach out and grab her by the throat." 

  


_She was so frail and fragile and she would break to tiny little pieces in his strong, capable hands._

  


"She wouldn’t be able to run." 

  


"She wouldn’t be able to do a thing." 

  


_“I wouldn’t get so close to me,” Saeran spat, his voice thick with pure malice and hostility. A warning._

  


_Her eyes narrowed very slightly, and then they flickered down to his now pair of clenched fists, shaking violently in his lap. But she didn’t say anything, and didn’t move, either._

  


Vulnerable. Naive. Weak. 

  


_“I wanted to kill you,” he told her in a raspy voice. “Sometimes, I look at you, and I still want to kill you.”_

  


_She did not flinch. “You won’t hurt me,” she said pragmatically, as if it were the most obvious fact. The easiest thing in the world to prove._

  


"No, the easiest thing in the world is to wrap those fingers of yours around her throat." 

  


"Saeyoung isn’t here to stop you." 

  


"Nothing will stop you." 

  


"She certainly won’t." 

  


"Just do it!" 

  


_She was completely unfazed by what was transpiring in front of her. Even as his eyes darted back and forth, around and around in their sockets as he had an intense internal debate with himself, about how much he wanted to hurt her._

  


_How much she deserved it._

  


_Saeran struggled to make out the shape of her as his vision went red, and then black. But she was still there next to him, he felt her. Her arms were outstretched like she wanted to touch him, but she was hesitating. The voices derided,_ “Touch me, and I’ll make sure you never touch anything again.”

  


_“No,” he spat. His voice shook, and cracked, and he was falling, conceding to the voices that were overtaking his whole being from his very core outwards._

  


“If you don’t want to hurt her, then maybe you want to hurt yourself." 

  


“What kind of life are you living, where you can’t even function unless you’re doped up on drugs all the time?” 

  


“Look at you, so sad, so pathetic.” 

  


“You are nothing. There is nothing left to your existence.” 

  


_“Stop!” Saeran whimpered, squeezing his fists against his ears. Why was everything so fucking loud?_

  


“You would never do it anyway. You’ll never change. Not ever." 

  


“Too delicate, too debilitated, too afraid to even perform an act that could end your miserable, sad excuse of a life.” 

  


“You are too much the same little bitch you’ve always been—” 

  


“A coward—” 

  


“WEAK—” 

  


_SMASH! Saeran had taken the vase off the coffee table and threw it downwards with all his might. It exploded into hundreds of glass fragments when it hit the floor. He was seeing red again. He didn’t notice how she leapt out of the way, shocked, and even shrunk back a little, in… fear?_

  


_And now Saeran was clutching firmly the biggest shard of glass he could find, holding the harshest part to his wrist. He didn’t hesitate for a second, he wouldn’t give the voices a second to say another fucking word to him – he raked it across his skin, and it pierced through him, stinging, burning – then the pain was white-hot and agonizing and excruciating, and he threw his head back to scream—_

  


_“No!!!!!” Something or someone heavy was flung at him, hitting him with such great force that the sliver of glass was sent clattering across the floor and out of reach. Everything went blurry. He was trudging through sludge. It was getting darker now… and colder… everything was so cold…_

  


_“Saeran!” A sweet voice cried out his name from the direction of the weight that was suddenly on top of him… so, so sweet… but there was no face to it. There was nothing but blackness, surrounding him, consuming him… wide open arms from nowhere greeted him, and pulled at him… he welcomed it… he was spiraling downward… it was icy cold…_

  


_“SAERAN!” There was that voice again, but it was less sweet when it sounded so pressing, so desperate… it was heart wrenching. It sliced through his conscience, or what was left of it – a rude awakening. He suddenly felt like he should be fighting against this darkness, against the chill... but he couldn’t…_

  


_And then the warmth. So tender. A minuscule amount, just a touch. Infinitesimal compared to how freezing everything else was. And yet it spread from the tiny perimeter where it met his skin, across the exterior of his body, seeping into every opening, every pore, diffusing rapidly through his veins to the tips of his extremities. Was he dying?_

  


_The voice was back, not sweet nor desperate, but urgent. Confident. Rattling off a thousand words a second. Who was it talking to? Was it on the phone?_

  


_Words. He needed to find words._

  


_“I’m dying,” Saeran said._

  


_“You are NOT dying,” the voice said firmly, dismissively. These words… they were strange. They made him feel like… fighting, but he didn’t have any fight left. His vision was shifting, like opening his eyes underwater and then surfacing. Is this what dying felt like?_

  


_Hold on. Was he on the ground? How did he get here?_

  


_He could finally put a shape of the voice, a feminine figure. An angel?_

  


_She was sitting on top of him, holding his arm straight up in the air for some reason. Wait. She was getting blood all over that pretty white sweater of hers. But where was it coming from?_

  


_She was compressing a spot on his wrist so forcefully and unyielding that his whole arm was going numb. Oh, so it was his blood._

  


_Ah. There was a sharp and throbbing pain with every heartbeat._

  


_…heartbeat…?_

  


_His heart was still beating. He wasn’t dead after all. And he had been ready to surrender to his fate._

  


_And then she spoke, calm, soothing, and reassuring. A sound that was the eye of the storm. “I’m here,” she cooed, and he surrendered to her instead._

  


_He stared at his hand that was clutched between both of hers, still squeezing tightly. The tremor was gone._

  


_She had noticed too. She looked from his hand, to his face, back and forth several times._

  


_“Please don’t ever—”_

  


_He looked at her curiously, but she wasn’t meeting his eyes._

  


_“—withhold your medication from yourself, ever again.”_

  


_It was so much easier to pretend._  


* * *

  
I jerk upright in a cold sweat, my hair plastered to my forehead in tepid strips. The stale, metallic scent of blood is fresh in the air around me. My face is ablaze and my body is shaking with the force of my bounding pulse. God, and my head is pounding. And I’m parched. I slowly recall that I had treated myself to an… overabundance of alcohol last night, and alcohol gives me nightmares. Makes sense.

  


It takes several long moments to fight through my headache and vague memories to reorient myself. My head is still reeling, less from the hangover and more so from the unpleasant horror I have just relived in my sleep. Even after I realize I’m awake, it is rattling my core. 

  


And then I remember.

  


“Saeran.” The whisper slips from my lips suddenly, and my body springs into action on its own. I kick off the sheets that I’d become entangled in, likely from thrashing in my sleep, and once I’m free, I scramble out of the bed. My hands are sweaty and I fumble with the door, bursting through it once I finally manage to fling it open.

  


He’s… he’s still not here? I frantically rush to his bedroom door. It’s still open the same amount from when I checked yesterday, and the room is still empty. The bed has clearly not been slept in, either, and a familiar sensation of trepidation washes over me.

  


I sprint back to the bedroom to seize my phone from the nightstand, and it’s to my ear before I realize my fingers have even dialed Saeran’s number. _We’re sorry, your call cannot be completed as dialed…_

  


“Fuck!” I cry out in frustration. _Fuck, fuck, fuck._ I chew on my thumb and I start to pace the room. I just need to think. I just need to breathe.

  


Am I overreacting just because of the dream that I had last night? My mind is still fairly foggy after all. _Think._ How would I feel if I didn’t have that dream? My mind darts about, reaching for justification. Saeran has not spent a night away from home since he started living here, and even if he chose now to do so, I’m sure he would have told me. Right? This is incentive enough to at least worry a little bit, right?

  


But I’m well aware that I’m far beyond the point of just worrying.

  


My heart throbs painfully, yearning for Saeyoung more than it has since he left. I miss him so much. He’s my anchor. He would talk me through this. His absence has only exacerbated my perpetual anxiety, and right now, it’s intensifying the panic that is fermenting. _Just breathe._ Would Saeyoung be panicking right now? Are these feelings justified? I can’t make sense of anything. I’m grasping at straws, trying to see things from Saeyoung’s perspective. 

  


_Saeyoung._ I bite my lip and remember what Saeran had said at dinner the night before, about regretting letting Saeyoung go. It was awfully cryptic at the time, and still is now, and does not help the sickly feeling of unease in my abdomen.

  


_Okay, stop. Think._

  


I was with Jumin and Jaehee last night, and explained why he hadn't attended, so he wasn’t with either of them. Could he be at Yoosung’s? A glance at the clock quickly discourages that theory. It’s just after 10 in the morning, and I know that Yoosung has a 10 o’clock lecture. I could try calling, just to be sure; as suspected, his phone is switched off. So is Zen’s. He would be at rehearsal. 

  


Zen. Hmm. My mind loiters on the image of him, and I rack my brains, trying to figure out why a pit has suddenly formed in my stomach. It lurches when I figure it out. Zen has psychic dreams. Could it be…?

  


No! I dismiss the thought immediately. I had had a nightmare about something that occurred in the past. It was not a foreshadow of something ominous.

  


_Or was it?_ My heart is racing. I don’t know. I have no idea.

  


There’s nowhere else Saeran could be. I’m slowly realizing that any semblance of sanity is long gone from my head. I’m struggling to be sensible, and the effort is fruitless. I am at a standstill.

  


My phone starts ringing loudly from where I’d flung it onto the bed. I dive for it, fumbling with clammy fingers to answer it. Relief… what a beautiful sensation… it sweeps over me. “Hello?” I breathe. 

  


“It’s me.” The fretfulness is back, and I am choking back gasps. The voice is Jumin’s. “I am calling to see how you are doing today. Last night was… well, you have no idea how difficult it was to get you inside your house, to say the least. You were—”

  


“Jumin,” I wheeze, struggling to contain my dry sobs. “Saeran isn’t here.” I know he’s pursing his lips. He doesn’t like being cut off.

  


“Is that unusual?” Jumin asks, a perplexed edge to his voice. “It isn't an unreasonable hour. Surely he—”

  


“No,” I interject, and I can practically hear Jumin reel at being interrupted a second time. Under normal circumstances, I might even tease and poke fun at this, but this was not the time. “As in, he never came home last night. He’s not here. What if something happened to him?” I can feel myself starting to hyperventilate. Seconds pass and Jumin says nothing.

  


“Hello?” I’m met again with silence at the other end. It drags on for a beat too long, and I pull the phone from my face to look at the screen, thinking perhaps the call has disconnected.

  


“Let’s try to be plausible,” comes his voice finally from the speaker, and I press the phone back to my ear. “He is an adult after all. Try to consider all the possibilities—”

  


“What a great fucking idea,” I mutter through clenched teeth, my voice dripping with sarcasm. “I am so glad that you are here with your ingenious suggestions. The thought never even crossed my mind, Jumin. Thank you so much. Excuse me while I take this time to contemplate all of the alternatives before I jump to the worst possible conclusion.” I hang up the phone. I feel guilty straightaway for being so rude, but I’m not my usual, somewhat composed self. I’m virtually in hysterics.

  


I collapse onto the edge of the bed. My phone is ringing again, and I don’t even bother getting my hopes up this time. I zone out staring at Jumin’s name lighting up the screen, so rapt that I nearly miss my window to answer. I haven’t even opened my mouth to apologize, when he brusquely says, “I’m on my way,” and hangs up. 

  


My body goes numb. My phone falls from my limp hand to the floor, and I let myself slip into a torpor.

  


First Saeyoung was gone, and now Saeran is too.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Regarding MC's last statement to Saeran in the flashback about withholding his medications from himself, she was able to tell he was doing so by: 1) the sudden onset of psychosis, and 2) the hand tremors. These are both _very common_ , dead giveaway symptoms of antipsychotic withdrawal.  
> 
> 
> Admittedly, this tidbit is a little self-indulgent as well. I'm a nursing student specializing in psych, so I find this very interesting! But that does not in any way change the fact that it's absolutely sad, and terrifying! It also makes me want to hug poor Saeran just a little tighter.


	8. Peak

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This is a chapter about cats ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)
> 
> No, really. Have some Elizabeth the 3rd.
> 
> ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **Warning: This chapter contains some (nonexplicit?) sexual content.** Nonexplicit is a question because that's what I would call it; it's hardly graphic or juicy enough for my tastes, but I'm a dirty sinner. Don't trust anything I say.

It's now day three post Saeyoung, and day one post Saeran. The house is too vast without them, too desolate. Jumin, true to his promise, had shown up almost immediately. Though I reprimanded him for leaving work, I was thankful for his presence. It was better being in someone's company. He and I have been sitting around, waiting for a sign, or phone call, or anything from anyone, and it never comes. It's early afternoon when I succumb to the anxiety and ask if we can go to his house instead, and he quickly obliges. 

  


Jumin’s apartment, the penthouse of the C&R building, is actually vast, and to it our bunker pales in comparison. But I feel better being here; there's a certain comfort in viewing the cityscape through not just a window, but an entire wall of glass. I immediately settle into his large leather couch, set by the wall that overlooks this scenery, and I'm content for the first time since Saeyoung left.  
  
  
Jumin emerges from the bedroom, where he’d wandered to take a phone call. I noticed that he’s changed from the plain white shirt and black pants he was wearing before, to full business attire. He notices me scrutinizing his appearance, and he sighs. “I apologize, but, it seems there are a few things that I have to handle at the office before the day is over. I’m sorry to leave so quickly after arriving here, but it shouldn’t take long.”  
  
  
I give him a small smile. “Don’t even worry about it. I’m grateful enough that you’ve allowed me to come here at all. It will feel better than being alone at home...”  
  
  
"Yes. I was worried regardless that you wouldn’t want to be alone, so I took it upon myself to speak with Zen and Yoosung. Both will be on their way shortly,” he says, somewhat sheepishly, “but I can call them back if you would rather not be bothered.”  
  
  
I chuckle a little. In truth, my heart is slightly warmed at his thoughtful gesture. “No, that’s fine. Those two are quite the handful on their own, never mind together, so it might actually be a nice distraction.”  
  
  
Jumin’s face tells me that he agrees all too well. "If you’re hungry, I can call my chef for you, or even order something in."  
  
  
His overly hospitable persona, as if I haven’t known him for months and been at his house innumerable times, is endearing. I can’t help the amused look on my face. "Thanks, Jumin, but I don't really have an appetite at the moment. Perhaps later." He regards me despondently, and this cajoles a small laugh from me. “You don’t have to look at me like that, you know. I’m not broken. Just lonely. And sad. I miss Saeyoung, and now I have no idea where Saeran has gone. It’s just, scary, I guess.”  
  
  
His expression shifts a little, but he still looks glum. "I’m remaining positive that we’ll hear from either one of them very soon.”  
  
  
At this statement, I revert back to longingly gazing out at the city. “Yeah.” Truthfully, I’m not sure what to think. Optimism is essential right now, but it’s surprisingly difficult to maintain when you don’t know any details about… anything.  
  
  
“Then, I’ll be going now. Please make yourself at home. Again, I’m very sorry I have to leave you like this.”  
  
  
"Take your time, Jumin. Don’t work too hard, and don’t worry too much about me. I'll have Zen and Yoosung here to keep me company soon. And thank you again for letting me stay here."  
  
  
"Of course."  
  
  
The second he’s gone, silence rings prominently in my ears again, and unexpectedly, I’m at the peak of my loneliness once again. Back into my slump I go. _Fuck_.  
  
  
I’m trapped in my own thoughts again, and it is not my favorite place to be. At the forefront, is my infinite longing for Saeyoung’s presence. I miss him an impossible amount, plagued by the bottomless void that only he can fill. I need to know that he’s safe, and I just… don’t… know. And so I suffer in his absence, this emptiness and fear of the unknown persisting every second. I solemnly vow to never let him do something so perilous again.  
  
  
Next to that, I just can’t wrap my head around where Saeran could have possibly gone. There is less of an emptiness in his absence, and just more… unease. Apprehension. I’m worried about him. I haven’t been able to shake the flashback of…. I shiver at the memory.  
  
  
He had been doing so well. Things were going so well. There’s no way that he could still be having those thoughts again, right? _Unless_ … no. No, he has definitely been taking his medication. There was no indication that he wasn’t, and I’d have been able to tell… right? _Ugh._ Of course I would have noticed… I did the first time.  
  
  
But what if he’d weaned off of them this time? Any onset of symptoms would less obvious, and not be as sudden…  
  
  
“Stop, stop,” I mutter to myself, and I put my head in my hands. I was going to drive myself up a wall with these thoughts.  
  
  
“Me-owwwwwww…..”  
  
  
I glance up, and notice that Elizabeth the 3rd has trotted over to me. She meows again, and I pat the couch next to me. She hops up willingly, and marches right into my lap, nudging my hand expectantly.  
  
  
"Hi, kitty," I coo at her, scratching behind her ear. Her entire body vibrates with her purring. The sound is so peaceful that any negative thoughts have completely vanished from my mind. "I'm the absolute envy of Saeyoung right now, and he doesn't even know it." She mews in agreement in sync with my hearty giggle. Inspirations comes to me, and I take out my phone and take a selfie with Elizabeth in my lap. I ignore my sunken, sullen appearance, and click on Saeyoung's contact info, disregarding the unsettling pang in my stomach.  
  
  
His profile pops up. I feel like it's been a lifetime since I've talked to him. He'd saved his name in my phone as "God of My Universe", naturally, and this makes me smile fondly, but it's the photo that he'd added that makes my heart swell with tremendous adoration. He's behind a window, or some other kind of glass layer, with his lips exaggeratedly pressed up against it. Viewing this picture now, or whenever he calls, gives the illusion of him trapped inside my phone, and kissing from the other side the screen. I can feel tears welling in my eyes. My goofball. I press my lips to my phone like a darn fool. God, I miss him.  
  
  
Elizabeth seems to sense my distress, and nuzzles up against my side, effectively breaking my trance. I brush aside my tears quickly, and send the selfie I took to Saeyoung's phone. I know the effort is in vain, watching as it’s sending… sending… sending…  
  
  
It isn't going to reach him anytime soon. If he even has his phone with him at all, it's either switched off or made inaccessible altogether.  
  
  
I zone out petting Elizabeth, beholding the expansive city beneath me, glowing orange under the setting sun. Right now, I’m on the top floor of what is likely one of the tallest buildings in this city. Considering the scope of the size of it alone, my problems are so trivial, so insignificant. It ends eventually, though, but it meets the borders of other cities; cities which make up countries, which make up continents. All this land and all the people that live there. And then there’s the innermost depths of the ocean, and the life contained there, and the sky, stretching into space, containing the moon and the stars and the planets and everything that ever existed. Yeah, my problems definitely don't matter.  
  
I sigh at this thought. That's not even close to true when nothing else matters to me.  
  
  
Saeyoung would truly appreciate my abstract thinking right now, though. Bonus points for incorporating space.  
  
  
_...wherever you both are in this ever-expanding universe, please come home safe..._  
  
  
I fantasize of the day that Saeyoung comes back to me. The rapture is euphoric. I’ll scold him for being away from me for so long, and we’ll banter for a bit. He’s home now. I’ll fall into his arms and collapse against his chest in heaving sobs. He’ll pepper me with kisses. It doesn’t hurt anymore. He’ll lift my chin and finally kiss me. His hands will work their way beneath my shirt, gliding across my bare skin, setting me on fire… our lips and bodies will mold together, and I'll feel him against me... everywhere... my shape will fill his every crevice… and he will fill every crevice of mine…  
  


* * *

  
His teeth gently nibble at a spot just below my ear, sending shivers down my spine that spread to my fingertips. He maps a thorough path down my body, licking and nipping, leaving blazing, tingling trails. No spot receives any less attention than the last.  
  
  
His kiss at the center of my navel drives me to madness, and I wriggle and twist under his touch. He pins me down with a sturdy, forceful hold, skimming his lips repeatedly across the same spot, making me tremble. I fumble for the sheets in anticipation, my nails clawing into them desperately.  
  
  
My voice, dripping with lust, is suddenly begging. He ignores me, persisting down my body in agonizingly slow movements. When he reaches his destination, he lifts his head slightly, eyes closed. He hovers there for a moment, basking in the heat that is emanating from me. His hands, with a steel grip, hold me down, and then he's there.  
  
  
I writhe, overcome with the sudden pleasure, and my fingers scrabble for his hair, entwined, tugging. He doesn’t seem to mind. His every action is esurient and powerful, imploring me to think about and feel for nothing and nobody but him, and I do.  
  
  
His name escapes from my lips, or some semblance of it, amidst a lascivious, shuddering gasp. The sensation of his even strokes is too much, and unintelligible sounds pour out of me in a distorted mess. His tongue has my most sensitive spots memorized, evident in the way it massages against me, and I squirm, throwing my head to the side and moaning into the pillow. Incoherent words are continually coaxed from me in short spurts between whimpers.  
  
  
My hands are groping at everything and nothing as I inch toward my peak, incessantly pulling at his ginger locks and grazing the skin at his hairline with my nails. Suddenly, I’m sprinting, and then I’m running, until I’m teetering precariously on the brink of sanity. And then all at once, I’ve overrun, and I explode into climax, into millions of fragments of decadence and bliss. I’m falling and grounded at the same time, his name spilling from my mouth in a crescendo. Every muscle contracts and pulsates, and I’m surmounted by waves and torrents of pleasure, flooding through me. My spine arches, tilting my whole body off the bed.  
  
  
I lay there, panting and spent, not realizing I’ve squeezed my eyes shut. When I open them, he’s before me, still on all fours, face and chin glistening with my arousal. I smile down at him, complacent. He reciprocates with a lecherous smirk, holding me hostage under his aquamarine gaze.  
  


* * *

  
With a stutter and a gasp, my eyes are open. Oh my.  
  
  
What the............. I'm dumbstruck. A thin sheen of sweat has formed on my forehead, and I blink rapidly several times, reorienting myself to my surroundings. It’s dark. I'd dozed off, and I'm still in Jumin's living room, on Jumin's couch.  
  
  
And what's more, my body still tingling from the... aftermath. _Oh my._


	9. Breached

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Zen and Yoosung are actually my two least favorite characters in the game, making them considerably difficult to write about, but I felt like the story would be incomplete without them! Zen is happy. But Yoosung is too busy killing raid bosses to care. lolol
> 
> Here they are in all their glory!

My face is conflagrant, threatening to melt off the rest of my body. Just liquesce and trickle to the floor in a messy heap.  
  
  
I’m aware that dreams generally don’t reflect actual thoughts in your head, but I’m also convinced that something must be going on in my subconscious for my brain to conjure up an image like that. _No, no, don’t overthink it,_ I urge myself. Which is easier said than done. _This_ dream is hard to forget.  
  
  
Or do I not want to forget?  
  
  
“Don’t be a fucking idiot,” I tell myself out loud. “You are in love with Saeyoung.”  
  
  
Yes. I am in love with Saeyoung. Saeyoung’s hands and Saeyoung’s lips. Both dancing across my skin in tandem. Saeyoung’s flaming red hair, Saeyoung’s minty green eyes -  
  
  
My phone rings, effectively snapping me out of my reverie, thank god. My heart no longer skips at the sound. It’s a number that I don’t recognize, however, so I can hardly help the tiny flicker of hope that flutters in me. _I’m being ridiculous._ This thought is confirmed when I answer, and the caller identifies themselves as the receptionist from downstairs.  
  
  
“It appears that you have two visitors here for you. Mr. Han asked me prior to his leaving to give you a call when they arrived, to double check that it was still fine with you to send them up.” Oh, Jumin. His worrying is charming.  
  
  
I’m still noticeably rattled, though… that dream. My face is still burning hot, and I consider for a moment the option I now know I have to turn them away. _That dream._ A couple of seconds of an internal argument with myself and I think better of it. “Yes, it’s fine, please send them up. And thank you.”  
  


* * *

  
“Hey.” I open the door, greeted by a pair of keen faces. “Thank you so much for coming.”  
  
  
“Wouldn’t turn it down for the world, princess,” Zen says, eagerly giving me a hug that, as usual, lasts for a second too long.  
  
  
“We miss you!” Yoosung pipes up. “I feel like it’s been forever since we’ve even seen you!”  
  
  
“We’ve definitely been super busy,” I agree, and I step aside to grant them full entry inside. Zen lets out a low whistle.  
  
  
“I always forget how pretentious Mr. Trust Fund Kid is,” he says, his eyes noticeably in awe as they sweep the room we stand in. He’s not totally lying; the room certainly is lavish.  
  
  
“If only he had a computer here…” Yoosung mutters, his voice trailing off, though his eyes are searching. Zen rolls his eyes.  
  
  
“Yoosung is missing a very important raid,” Zen says in a contemptuous tone, “as if there’s anything in the world right now that’s more important than you.”  
  
  
I can’t help but laugh. “Oh, but isn’t there? The LOLOL world can’t survive without Superman Yoosung’s aptitude and chivalry! It needs saving more than I do!” Zen grins, and Yoosung’s face turns pink under the dim lights. I nudge him a little bit. “I’m teasing you. Honestly, if you want to play that badly, I actually brought one of our laptops.” I gesture over to the bar, where I’d dropped my belongings on one of the chairs. “Saeyoung installed LOLOL on all of them, for some reason. I think just to prove that laptops he built can handle it…” Yoosung’s face lights up, and he’s staring down my bag ravenously. I chortle, and brighten a bit at his excitement.  
  
  
Zen stares as Yoosung wastes no time hurrying over to it, as enthusiastic as a child on Christmas. He whips everything out and assembles it right on the island. Zen rolls his eyes again, even more dramatically this time.  
  
  
“Are you really about to do this?” he asks disbelievingly. “We’re not here for video games! There’s a real life damsel in distress that needs us right here!”  
  
  
“I don’t mind, Zen,” I assure him, and he opens up his mouth to argue. “No, really, I don’t. The company of you two is plenty. Would either of you like something to drink?”  
  
  
“Please, you’re the guest here,” Zen counters, marching right on over to the kitchen and yanking open the refrigerator. I want to remind him that he, too, is a guest, but sometimes with Zen, you have to pick your battles. Particularly when he thinks he is being gentlemanly.  
  
  
Yoosung has already loaded into the game, and he’s typing furiously into the chat box to someone. I’m pleased at the sight of him enjoying himself. I’m happy at the sight of both of them, actually. It’s true that it has been a while since we had been together last. Their presence now is uplifting, and distracting. _Almost_ distracting enough to make me forget certain dreams…  
  
  
Zen is in front of me again, and my trance is broken again. He’s looking down at me, troubled. “Are you alright? You seem… out of it.”  
  
  
I laugh nervously. “Of course I’m alright. Just… going through a lot right now.” _A lot indeed._  
  
  
The concern doesn’t quite leave his face, but he doesn’t push the issue any further. Instead, he holds out a beer for me. I hesitate before taking it.  
  
  
“Um, I’m not sure if that’s a great idea,” I say. I’m vividly recalling what happened alongside last night’s wine consumption. I was less worried about the inebriation itself, and more worried about the evident enhancement of my dreams as a result of it... I certainly don’t need any assistance in that department…  
  
  
But since Zen doesn’t know this, he just chuckles, pressing the bottle into my hand. “Don’t you worry, babe. I’m not going to let you get smashed.” He winks at me, and I tentatively take the drink. He holds his bottle up, and I meet mine to his, the openings clanging as they touch.  
  
  
“Are either of you hungry?” I ask, once I’ve taken a swig. Zen’s eyes narrow at my question, and I remember what he said earlier about my “being a guest,” but I still can’t help it. “Jumin offered to order something in, or call his chef… or I could cook… although, I don’t know what kind of food Jumin even has in the house.”  
  
  
“Probably nothing. Has Mr. Trust Fund Kid ever even stepped foot in a kitchen before?” Zen frowns. “Not only that, he’s probably never been shopping a day before in his life!” I laugh as I wander over to the kitchen. Zen trails behind me, and Yoosung still hasn’t said a word since getting in game.  
  
  
I comb through the cupboards, ignoring Zen’s words, but silently appreciate them. His humor is refreshing; it’s not the excessive amount that I’m used to hearing daily, but it’ll suffice. I realize they even hold a little bit of truth. While I am certain that Jumin has been in the kitchen before – although maybe just to help himself to some wine, I’m not sure that’s he’s ever cooked – I’m only half as certain that he’s been shopping on his own; I think I recall him mentioning a personal shopper once or twice. Zen is absolutely correct on one count, though: Jumin’s kitchen is remarkably scarce.  
  
  
“Huh,” I say at this realization. “Well, I guess you’re right that he has no food. I guess we’ll have to go shopping if we want to eat. Unless you would rather I ask Jumin to call his chef?”  
  
  
Zen guffaws at this. “No. Absolutely not. I don’t need that pompous jerk using his trust fund money to get someone else to feed me. Let’s go shopping together, babe.”  
  
  
My eyes flicker over to Yoosung, who is completely entranced by his game. “Yoosung, we’re heading out for a little while. You’ll be fine here on your own?”  
  
  
His head snaps up, flabbergasted, and he looks around nervously as if surprised by his surroundings. His eyes lock on me. “I’m fine, how are you?”  
  
  
Zen’s eyes roll histrionically for the third time, and I giggle. “We’re just going shopping for things to make dinner with. I’m leaving my phone here on the charger, so if it catches on fire, don’t forget, it’s stop drop and roll!” Yoosung mumbles something in acknowledgement, engrossed in his game once again. At least Zen laughs. Someone appreciates my dry humor.  
  
  
I send Jumin a text to let him know what we are doing; as expected, he rebukes me for not letting him provide us with food. Well, Yoosung and I. He’s not worried about Zen, and makes that abundantly clear. I leave my phone where it’s plugged in as I’d stated, and Zen and I exit the apartment. I suggest to him that we just go to the shop that I know is located on one of the lower floors, but he insists on us taking a walk a couple of blocks over to his favorite market. Plus, he wants to smoke. I scowl in disapproval at him, but he simply gives me a cheesy grin in return.  
  
  
We walk in silence for a little while as he takes a couple of puffs from his cigarette. This silence allows my mind to stray to certain repressed thoughts. I almost consider bringing the dream up to Zen to see what he thinks.  
  
  
Ugh. These emotions… they’re all a misperception, right? I’m just feeling confused because the dream is so fresh? It can’t be… curiosity? 

What is there to be curious about? I am a million percent sure that my heart belongs to Saeyoung entirely.  
  
  
Maybe… maybe this new fondness of Saeran just pertains to the connection we shared the other night over dinner – which, of course, was related to Saeyoung, the man that I _love_ – and is intensified because he’s missing now? And that there’s nothing I can actually do about it? He’s just… missing… I don’t _miss him?_ I don’t think? I’m not all that affected by his absence past wondering where he is and hoping so much that he is okay. There is no emptiness tied to it, right? No subliminal meaning hidden in my dream? I just miss Saeyoung.  
  
  
But those eyes…  
  
  
No, no. It’s because I’ve only seen Saeran’s eyes lately. My brain is just confused, it’s jumbled and my thought process is askew when I’m sleeping, because I’m, well, frazzled…  
  
  
_But those eyes…_  
  
  
Jesus Christ, I need to calm down. I love Saeyoung and that's that.  
  
  
I have just vowed to not think about the dream again when I notice we have apparently stopped walking. We’re standing outside the store, and Zen is on the last couple of drags of his cigarette. He is also observing me carefully.  
  
  
“You’ve been noticeable flustered since Yoosung and I showed up,” he points out. I cock my head, feigning innocence. “Oh don’t give me that. Are you sure it’s not…” He breathes a cloud of smoke into the air, away from me – smart boy – and leans in just a little bit closer. “…because of me?”  
  
  
I gape at him. You have got to be kidding me. I forget for a moment that I really have been flustered, and I can’t contain the snort that escapes from me. “I’m 99.9% sure that it isn’t because of you, Zen.”  
  
  
This is apparently not a smart thing to say. “Not 100%, though? You seem unsure, then.” He flings his now finished cigarette to the side, now regarding me intently, his eyes gleaming. “You’re just lonely, aren’t you?” I am very wrong again to assume he means well by this comment, because I nod, and he interprets this as an in. I should have known better.  
  
  
His elbow up against the side of the building, he bends over – he towers over me by almost a foot – and whispers uncomfortably close to my ear, “Well, I can fix that, you know…”  
  
  
I draw back just a little, and examine his face: there’s no hint of jest anywhere in his features. He continues to look at me expectantly. As if I don’t have enough on my mind, here’s just one more thing…  
  
  
“You could,” I respond, and stand on my tiptoes so my face is nearly level with his. Our bodies are angled toward each other, and so close that I can practically taste the cigarette on him. His lips part, and he gazes at me through half-lidded eyes, when I add as sweetly and softly as I can manage, “but you won’t,” and shove him away.  
  
  
He retaliates fairly quickly, smoothing the part of his jacket where my hand came in rough contact with his chest. He pouts at me. “I just want a princess to get the treatment she deserves.”  
  
  
“Really, Zen?” I’m used to his flirting, but now? “My _boyfriend_ is away right now and possibly risking his life so that the RFA, including your sorry ass, is safe, and you’re spitting game? Buzz off.”  
  
  
He sulks for the remainder of the shopping trip, and I decide not to disclose any details about my dream with him.  
  
  
Ugh, there I go, thinking about it again, despite what I’d promised myself. That dream.  
  


* * *

  
When Zen and I approach Jumin’s apartment, several shopping bags in tow, we hear a clamorous sound emanating from behind the door. Zen and I quickly exchange a worried look before I swipe the keycard that allows us entry. There is no obvious source of the noise, but it sounds like a poorly muffled airhorn.  
  
  
“Sorry,” Yoosung calls out, startling me. I glance over to him. He hasn’t moved from his chair at the bar. His tongue is poking out from between his lips in concentration, still absorbed in whatever he is doing in his game. “Your phone started making that obnoxious noise. I shoved it between the couch cushions to try and drown it out a bit.”  
  
  
“My phone is making this noise?” I hurry in the direction of the couch, and dig between the cushions, emerging with my phone in hand. The noise is more raucous than ever, now exposed to air. The screen is sporadically alternating between red and yellow in rapid succession, not unlike the appearance of a strobe light. When I glimpse the message that flashes across, I drop it in utter shock, and scramble to pick it up again. “Yoosung, are you fucking serious? You didn’t think that maybe this might be important? You couldn’t call Zen to let me know?”  
  
  
Yoosung looks sheepish, and doesn’t answer. He doesn’t have to; I already know the answer, and I'm partially to blame for it. He was too busy with that stupid game. It probably took a massive effort just to tear himself away long enough to try and stifle the sound of it at all.  
  
  
“Is everything okay?” Zen is by my side in an instant, anxious as ever.  
  
  
“No, everything is not okay,” I spit at him, my voice seething with venom. He flinches, and I don’t care. Yoosung actually looks up at this. “Someone breached the security at the bunker.”  
  
  
How, HOW they infiltrated the system, I have no idea.  
  
  
Trepidation suddenly hits me like a ton of bricks, every ounce of ire overshadowed and forgotten. I realize that I must not have properly secured the bunker in my haste to leave earlier. Stupid! _Stupid!!!_ It’s quite literally the dumbest thing I have ever done. No… it’s not the dumbest. That hardly glances the surface. This is the absolute bottom, the _worst_ thing. Everything that Saeyoung is doing for us right now is otiose if someone accesses what we have at home: what is supposed to be safeguarded there. Garrisoned. Fuck. He will _never_ forgive me for this.  
  
  
I’m internally kicking myself and more, but deep down I know that now isn’t the time to be worried about the long-term consequences regarding my relationship. I have to act. _Fuck._  
  
  
“I'm leaving. Tell Jumin,” I say to Zen, cutting off whatever he was in the middle of saying. He and Yoosung have been firing questions at me nonstop, but I was too absorbed in my thoughts. And I still am. I collect my things and I'm halfway to the door in one swift movement.  
  
  
“Wait!!” Yoosung shouts after me. “What about your computer—”  
  
  
“Keep it,” I splutter, and I’m out the door.


	10. Rooted

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So sorry for the delay between updates! My new semester started today and o m g I'm so not ready to be back ;_;
> 
> Here's a somewhat longer chapter for you guys to make up for it!! I'll try harder to keep up with daily updates from now on!

As I’m running, I immediately realize I haven’t made the best choice. For starters, the sun has set. I’m not normally worried about being out in the dark, but this current situation has me a little more shaken up than usual. And I’m simply not in the same great shape that I was prior to a year of living with someone who thrives off the nourishment that Honey Buddha chips provide. My bag is bouncing painfully against my leg, and I have a deep stitch in my side, but I ignore both and press on. The bunker is at least 3 miles from Jumin’s building, and I’m less than halfway. Not sure what I was thinking, but my panic had certainly attributed to my bad judgement.

 

My phone rings and lights up with Jumin’s image, and I don’t answer. I have running to do. He’s relentless though, and calls three more times before I finally slow to a speed walk and wheeze into the phone, “What is it?”

 

“May I ask why you’re _running_ home?” Jumin chides. “Especially at this time of night?”

 

“Because I made a split-second decision leaving me with no room for rationalization – Jumin, now is not the time for this—”

 

“Get in the car,” he says shortly, and hangs up. I stop walking completely. What…?

 

And then a sleek black car pulls up alongside me. Is he for real right now?

 

I scramble into the backseat, and sure enough, there sits Jumin, looking smug. “Do I want to know?” Even my annoyed tone can’t disguise how grateful I am for a place to nurse my throbbing legs. Plus, my lungs are on fire. This is clearly evident in my gasping for air.

 

“Even if Saeyoung didn’t share with me the tracking info of your phone, do you truly believe that I don’t have the resources to figure it out myself?” I roll my eyes. Not only does Mr. Trust Fund Kid need to simmer down, I have a bone to pick with this boyfriend of mine. Or keeper, as he is making himself out to be.

 

“I’m not sure what you were thinking,” Jumin continues on, and I redirect my attention to him from the pleasant imagery of how I’ll admonish Saeyoung’s overprotective behavior, “but did you really believe it was intelligent to just waltz on into a sight that has just experienced a bypass of its security system? And an explicitly dependable one at that. Don’t be so irresponsible. You have no idea what you could potentially walk into there.”

 

He’s not wrong. I can’t even find holes in his scolding to counter, because I knew I had made a hasty decision. Maybe part of me had been too hopeful…

 

Jumin and I ride in silence – mostly because I’m certain everything he’ll use against me to scold me is true, and I won’t be able to reciprocate with anything – until the car pulls up just outside the bunker. I do a quick sweep of the outside with my eyes. There is nothing about the exterior of the bunker that suggests it underwent forced entry. My hand is halfway to the handle of the car door when Jumin’s hand wraps around my wrist.

 

“Wait a second. You cannot just run in there on your own. We just had a conversation about this.”

 

I wave my hand in the direction of the house, urging him to see what I’ve just seen. “Does it really look like someone broke in?”

 

He doesn’t bother to look. “You are being irrational again. Just because everything looks peaceful from the outside doesn’t mean that something unexpected is waiting for you inside.”

 

I struggle against his grip, but it’s steel, much like his dark grey eyes that are boring into mine. “What if it’s Saeyoung in there?!” I exclaim, albeit wishful thinking.

 

“What if it’s not?” Jumin sighs. He sounds exasperated. “I don’t know that Saeyoung would ever be in a position to break into his own home, for starters. Also, you know that he would not be happy to see you there, especially unaccompanied, knowing there was a security breach.” I can’t argue that one. Saeyoung would never let me hear the end of it. Jesus, Jumin is either full of very good points tonight, or I’m currently the victim of very illogical thinking, and his points are just obvious points. I assume the latter. “I understand how anxious you must feel, but please consider this in a rational manner. Now, allow either myself or the security guards to accompany you.”

 

I tug away from him a bit more, but his grasp is unwavering. I’m slightly ashamed for making so many bad choices today, but I also can’t bring myself to worry about it too much. All I know is I am hoping to see one particular face behind that door.

 

“Fine,” I say bitterly through gritted teeth, and yank my hand away the second he releases it.

 

Jumin walks around the car to open the door for me, and follows very closely behind as I lead the way to the bunker’s entrance. I grant us both entry by means of swiping my fingertip across the touchpad; it had taken a lot of struggling and Saeyoung’s subsequent laughter at me, as well as copious amounts of swearing at the system in Arabic to get him to finally input my print information. Even from time to time, when Saeyoung is working, he denies me access remotely, just to see me get frustrated. It’s “fun”, and “cute", he claims.

 

I do the same for the second and third door in the hallway – I never realized before how long this actually takes – and I hesitate just before opening the last one.

 

My heart is pounding. I’m suddenly thankful that Jumin is here; I’ve only just realized how edgy and afraid I really am. I cling to his arm, and push the door open.

 

But… nobody is here?

 

I shoot a brief confused look at Jumin, which he returns immediately. I walk cautiously inside, still considerably tense. I run my fingers over every surface, and my eyes dart about the room, on the hunt for the tiniest detail out of place. There isn’t one. I wander into the computer room. The bunker looks just as we have left it earlier. It’s definitely empty.

 

“This doesn’t make any sense,” I mumble, mostly to myself, but Jumin shakes his head in agreement. I pull out my phone to view the security app that Saeyoung developed and then installed for me. The features include access to the CCTV feeds of the cameras we have implanted here, amongst another things, including that obnoxious alert that sounded earlier. I pull up the history, and sure enough, it shows that our system has definitely been bypassed. I hop onto one of the computers and quickly access the records there, wondering if maybe there was a glitch in the app. Here, everything is completely clean. What…?

 

“I don’t think there’s anything here,” I tell Jumin after reviewing everything I possibly can pertaining to this. He had been leaning against the doorway, watching me scour several pages and come up short. “I can’t explain it.” With a sigh, I flop against the back of the chair. “I wish Saeyoung were here. Or even Saeran. Either of them could explain it better than I can. It has to have been a malfunction.”

 

Jumin’s face visibly relaxes, but I haven’t actually convinced myself. Not even a little.

 

We do a thorough searching of the house together, though, and once again come up short. There is definitely nobody here.

 

“I suppose we should head back, before it gets too late.” Jumin checks his watch, and runs a hand through his hair, looking mildly annoyed.

 

“Is everything okay?” I ask. I realize that I must have impeded his work by interrupting whatever he was doing when he came out looking for me.

 

“Everything is fine,” he reassures, “but I do still have several things to finish up at the office before I can make it home myself.”

 

“I can just take one of Saeyoung’s cars back to your place,” I suggest. “That way, I’m not wasting anymore of your work time.”

 

“It’s not a waste of time,” Jumin corrects immediately. “Of course this was an issue that needed to be immediately tended to. However, if you would like to take one of Saeyoung’s cars, that is fine. I can inform the valet at C&R prior to your arrival, so they know to watch for you.”

 

“Sounds good.” I smile at him. “I’ll walk you out. I’ll be right behind you, but I just want to grab a couple things first. When I leave, I’ll make sure to sufficiently lock up, just in case.”  
  


* * *

  


Once Jumin is gone, I study the living room one more time. It still doesn’t make sense. If Saeyoung was here, he’d know in an instant what had happened; my hacking knowledge is limited to just about nothing. I know quite a bit about computers, mostly from things he’d taught me here and there, but even if I dug a little deeper in his computer, I wouldn’t find anything.

 

I’m skeptical about returning to Jumin’s apartment at all; all that’s waiting for me there is possible seduction by Zen, and watching Yoosung play LOLOL. The prospect was appealing before, but now that the plot has thickened, I’m strongly considering just staying here and figuring this out.

 

Sigh. I know I can’t actually do that. For one, I’m not even close to positive that this place is safe to be in right now. On top of that, I’d absolutely be betraying Jumin’s trust by not returning to his house.

 

I head to mine and Saeyoung’s bedroom to collect the things that I’d stayed behind for. I do this absentmindedly; I’m longing for Saeyoung’s return. Things like this don’t happen when he’s away, and even if they did, they wouldn’t remain a mystery for long. I make a mental note to request that he teach me a thing or two upon his return. This may be just preventative enough that I’m never this stressed in the future, if ever I’m left alone again.

 

Which I also plan to ensure never happens; at least for the reasons that this absence of his has occurred.

 

I do a once-over of my bag to make sure that I have everything I need, and then I grab the keys to my favorite car of Saeyoung’s hidden in his dresser. They don’t need to be “hidden”, per se, but I actually keep them there, for... personal reasons. _Ahem._ Not because I get too jealous when Saeran drives it or anything like that!

 

I make a quick stop in the kitchen before leaving, hoping to sneak away one of Saeyoung’s bags of chips from his stash. I poke fun at him all the time for his diet, but they are pretty good.

 

Okay, they’re actually really good. I think I'll take two.

 

...I’m not getting very far into the kitchen, though. I’m frozen in the doorway: unaware that the keys have fallen from my hands and landed on the floor with a jingle, but very aware that my blood has rushed and drained from every single part of me.

 

 _Someone is already there._  
  
  
And it looks like I had gotten what I wished for: to see one particular face behind the door.  
  


* * *

  
“Sa—Saeran?!”  
  
  
He turns around to face me. _Holy shit._ It’s him. It’s really him. He’s here. A spoon is hanging lopsided from his mouth, and he’s holding an entire carton of ice cream in his hand.  
  
  
My eyes automatically are scanning over him, scrutinizing every inch of him. He appears to be unharmed; nothing about him seems visually or physically abnormal. His pupils – now the first thing I instinctively pay mind to when something might be “off” – are… fine. Everything seems fine. This analysis is a force of habit. The drinking him in that my eyes are also doing, though…  
  
  
Fuck.  
  
  
_Yeah fucking right. Don’t you dare think about that right now…_  
  
  
“Stop analyzing me,” Saeran drones through a spoonful, and I flush, guilty. Guilty of more than one thing…  
  
  
I feel all of my blood resume its flow back into the appropriate circulation. This, of course, includes my face.  
  
  
“What… what are you doing?” I stammer.  
  
  
“I’m eating ice cream.” He pulls the spoon from his mouth with a loud smacking sound, and proceeds to pick up another mouthful’s worth. He hums in appreciation as he licks it off the spoon. “This flavor is very good. I like it a lot.”  
  
  
I gape at him incredulously. _Is he serious?_  
  
  
“Yes, I’m serious. Why have I never had this before?” My gaping intensifies. He’s… chuckling? “I’m sorry, it’s just. That was such an “are you serious” face.” I stare at him. Is he alright? “You look at Saeyoung like that when he’s being ridiculous. So, naturally, I see it all the time.”  
  
  
“Being ridiculous must run in the family,” I mutter under my breath. He sucks on the spoon and regards me curiously, but doesn’t respond. I’m rooted to the spot, racking my brains for words, but I struggle to find any. And then I’m distracted by his tongue swirling around that spoon… that tongue…  
  
  
God help me.  
  
  
“Where the hell have you been?” I demand.  
  
  
Another _pop_ and the spoon is out of his mouth, now stuck upright in the ice cream carton. Saeran wipes his mouth with the back of his hand, and suddenly becomes fixedly interested in something on his fingers. I cross my arms, not averting my glare.  
  
  
He looks back up at me suddenly like he’s seeing me for the first time. I wave at him once. “Hello, yes, I’m still here, and I’m talking to you. Did you not hear me? Where were you?” Perhaps the time away has damaged his ears.  
  
  
Again he doesn’t answer right away, and instead scoops another spoonful into his mouth. “I’m an adult,” he says, swallowing. Another bite before he speaks again. “Sorry. Yeah. I didn’t realize I needed your permission to do things.”  
  
  


“Cut the shit, Saeran,” I snap. “Where the _fuck_ have you been?”  
  
  
Into his mouth goes another scoop. He makes a sound not unlike a moan in approval at this bite. _Jesus._ “Oh, mmmm,” the moan continues. “This has pieces of strawberries in it. Amazing.” He looks up and notices my expression, something between a glower and suppression of gratification at this point. “Oh, right, where have I been. Yeah. None of your business.”  
  
  
I’m tapping my foot now, attempting to control my frustration and anger. I can't believe him.  
  
  
Then it clicks.  
  
  
“Were you with Saeyoung?!” He does not confirm nor deny this inquiry. He remains indifferent, and fully absorbed in his ice cream consumption. He is acting like this on purpose, and this behavior practically confirms my suspicion. Now I’m furious. “Were you???”  
  
  
He slurps up another spoonful, and shivers. “Brain freeze, yikes.”  
  
  
“Saeran, you have got to be kidding me right now. Stop being an asshole.”  
  
  
He cocks his head at me, and I think I notice a shift in his expression, however slight. My hopefulness is immediately shut down, though, when he shrugs just a little and puts the lid back on the ice cream. “Thanks for buying this. I think it’s my new favorite.” I watch as he returns it to the freezer, drops the spoon in the sink, and turns to face me again.  
  
  
Oh no. He’s not escaping that easily.  
  
  
"Saeran!!!"  
  
  
I’m prepared to permanently stand my ground in the doorway, when he reaches into his pocket, and pulls out a folded piece of paper.  
  
  
Not just folded…  
  
  
...but in the shape of an origami cat.  
  
  
My heart stops beating.  
  
  
In my moment of weakness, he drops the paper on the counter, and sidles past me effortlessly. He stops on the way to bend and pick up my keys, and tosses them onto the table as he passes. I don’t stop him. In fact, I can’t. I am not moving. I am not breathing. I stand here indefinitely.  
  
  
After an infinite amount of time passes, I take the three uneasy strides to get to the counter, and with a shaky hand, I pick up the utterly beautiful work of art. It’s the most exquisite and perfect crudely folded piece of paper I’ve ever seen in my entire life. I can hardly stop trembling long enough to grasp a hold of any fold. Between these quivering hands of mine and the thrashing about that my heart is doing in my chest cavity, the earth is most definitely shifting on its axis.  
  
  
Someway, somehow, by some miracle, by some divine intervention... I manage to open it.  
  


> _To the center of my universe,_  
>    
>    
>  _First of all, stop being so nervous. It’s just me!_  
>    
>    
>  _Second of all, once you’ve stopped being nervous (which I know you have, just after reading that), stop being mad. Yes, you are. I know you are. Stop it right meeeowww!_  
>    
>    
>  _Omg. lol stop denying that you’re mad. If you’re reading this, you are definitely mad. You think I don’t know you? Guess again~_  
>    
>    
>  _Okay, now that you’ve smiled at that, do I tell you that I love you now or later? If I tell you now, I get to see (or, well, sit here and picture it, because yeah) that smile a little bit longer. But if I tell you later, I get to make you smile again. I guess you’ll have to hear it both times! The smile shall never leave your face! Mwahahahahahaha!_  
>    
>    
>  _Is it later yet? No? Too bad lolol. I love you sweetie~_  
>    
>    
>  _But, seriously, I know you’re mad, and I deserve it. But Saeran doesn’t. So don’t be mad at him, please? I did what I thought was best. I called him because I desperately needed his help, and I asked him not to say anything to you about coming here. I promise I'll explain as much more as I can to you. But not here. The bottom line is, please don’t be mad. I just didn’t want you to worry!_  
>    
>    
>  _HA! Stop scowling at me through this letter! You’re a worrywart and if that’s not true, I’m the biggest hacker disgrace this world has ever seen!!!_  
>    
>    
>  _lololololol. I really did laugh out loud out loud out loud out loud out loud at that. I’m a hacker god, the sky is blue, and you worry too much!_  
>    
>    
>  _Eh. That’s actually only two-thirds true. The sky is surprisingly grey when you’re not next to me._  
>    
>    
>  _Omg wow that was so cheesy lolol. But you smiled! Yes!!! Mission accomplished!!! I’m a ~love machine~_  
>    
>    
>  _So, how about now? Is it later now? I think I love you more than I did the last time I said it, and less than when I’ll tell you next!_  
>    
>    
>  _Testing… I love you~ …yup, my heart’s beating even faster! Not only am I a god, I’m also p s y c h i c! Omg. How did you get so lucky to find me?! lololol_  
>    
>    
>  _Omg now I’m running out of room T_T Sometimes I’m so blinded by love that I forget that not everything is as infinite as the love I have for you, including the space on this paper. Ok that was cheesy too lol but I don’t care!!!_  
>    
>    
>  _Is your heart racing right meow? I know mine is~_  
>    
>    
>  _Read this as often as you would like until I’m back home with you, which will be very very soon. And never forget that I’m always with you. Also never forget to not be mad at Saeran. Be mad at me!! I can handle your wrath! Grrrr!_  
>    
>    
>  _No wait! I'm kidding! Don’t be mad at me either! Just love me!!!_  
>    
>    
>  _Just think, if you read this tomorrow, whenever tomorrow is, it’s one day closer to us being reunited!!_  
>    
>    
>  _Also, it must be later now too, right? RIGHT?? I love you!!!!!_  
>    
>    
> 
> 
> _EVEN MORE THAN THE LAST TIME I SAID IT AND LESS THAN THE NEXT TIME I DO,_
> 
> _Defender of Justice and Loooooove,_  
> 
> 
> _Saeyoung  
>  _
> 
> _Meow~  
>  _


	11. Enigma

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> To everyone that expressed their concerns about me after last chapter's note: No worries!! I'm not overexerting myself, just stressed, because college wouldn't be college without instilling copious amounts of it. :>  
>   
> I now come to you all with a request! There is something I'm working on, on the side (Mystic Messenger related, of course!) that I could use a little help with! If you find that you have a little extra free time, are knowledgeable of this fandom, and you're interested in lending me a hand, please feel free to contact me at eryselizabeth@gmail.com, and I'll disclose all the top secret details!!  
>   
> In advance, thank you so much! And thank you all for reading my story! I don't convey my gratitude to you guys enough, for both sharing my guilty (not really) pleasure, and fueling me to continue onward with my writing! I appreciate each and every one of you xoxo

I am avoiding Saeran. He would have to be pretty naïve to not realize it, and he’s exceptionally not naïve; in the year that we’ve lived together, I have never confined myself to the bedroom when he’s home. In fact, I could be annoyingly persistent at times in making him hang out with me. Yet here I sit, in the center of the bed, clutching Saeyoung’s letter to my chest like it's a life preserver. I’m absolutely on cloud 9 having heard from him. _He’s safe._ The sticky residue on my cheeks from the tears I’ve shed nonstop since reading it suggest otherwise, but I’m euphoric. Come to think of it, maybe Saeran just thinks I’ve cried myself to death, and he’s enjoying the peace and quiet, for once.  
  
  
Saeyoung is safe. Or so I assume. I might actually know if I went and talked to Saeran, but…  
  
  
In my head, Saeyoung is safe. I’m happy here in my little happy bubble of imagination where Saeyoung and Saeran spent time happily in the other’s company, confirming that both are okay and happy, and relaying that happy confirmation to me.  
  
  
Happy… yeah.  
  
  
Truthfully, I’m nothing but a ball of nerves at the moment. At every little sound outside of the door, I’m certain that Saeran is going to knock on it, and try to _talk_ to me. The thought is unimaginable; I can’t ignore him forever, but I cannot bring myself to rise from this cushiony spot in the mattress and outside of the room to face him. Not yet. Not ever, probably.  
  
  
Next to the elation and relief and _happy_ that I’ve felt since Saeran’s return, undeniable is the elephant in the room.  
  
  
I’m ecstatic that Saeran is back and safe; perhaps it’s not on the same wavelength that those feelings go just for hearing from Saeyoung, but they’re there. Still, I can’t help but wish he delayed his return a little longer. I have not had any time at all to mentally prepare myself.  
  
  
Though content, it’s still uncomfortable settling into this seclusion and being overwhelmed with thought after thought of that dream I had about Saeran. The distraction of Zen and Yoosung’s presence, and then the stress with the security “breach” – _ugh, I’m eventually going to_ have _to ask him about that, because I need to know_ – and then the jubilation that came with Saeyoung’s letter all were successful in helping me, somewhat, push those thoughts, mostly, back into my subconscious.  
  
  
These _thoughts_ , this nervousness and unease, it’s all because of the dream, right? Curiosity is natural, right?  
  
  


I am trying to convince myself that’s true. I actually have no experience in this department. The guilt, truthfully, is killing me. Since meeting Saeyoung, I’ve had eyes for absolutely nobody but him. I love him. I know that I’d never _act_ on these thoughts. But they exist, and the extent that they reach concerns me, in that they do. Prior to this dream, I've never even looked at Saeran past what our relationship strictly was: mutually cordial. And I was _okay_ with that.  
  
  
Part of me continues to wonder if maybe I should talk to someone about this. I don't know… who?  
  
  
Zen makes the most sense, because he’s the most… experienced. Yoosung is probably the most inexperienced. I think he would sputter and stutter and generally babble with incoherent advice. Jaehee would probably be motherly, thick with concern and scolding – as if I can help it. But, I think Jumin would give awkward, laughable advice… which actually doesn’t sound unappealing...  
  
  
Oh, right, speaking of them, I should probably inform them that I’m likely not returning to the penthouse tonight. Staying home to organize my thoughts might be a good idea. It may also increase the likelihood that I’ll muster up the courage, from somewhere, to potentially communicate with this other person in the house with me.  
  
  
I reach for my phone at its usual place on my nightstand, and – _fuck_ – it’s in the other room. I can picture exactly where, too: right on top of my bag, which is sitting on the floor right by the front door, where I’d let it slide after my… _pleasant_ surprise earlier.  
  
  


Leaving Saeyoung’s letter in plain sight where I’m certain it won’t disappear from, I creep over to the door and open it the tiniest crack in order to peer through toward Saeran’s door, which, thankfully, is closed. Okay. Breathe. And… _go!_  
  
  


Lightning fast, I sprint silently over to grab my phone, exactly where I’d thought it was. I move so swiftly that I don’t have time to panic when I hear his door open, because I have already dived back onto the bed once I’m safely back in the room; safely back in my own little bubble of solitude in the center of the mattress.  
  
  


I sign into the chatroom to find that Zen is there, at least. He’ll do for now.  
  
  


> Me  
>  Hey, Zen. I just wanted to let you and Yoosung know that I won’t be coming back to Jumin’s tonight.  
>  Me  
>  And Jumin, since you'll eventually see this as well.  
>  Me  
>  Change of plans… it’ll be fine for me to stay home. 
> 
>   
>  ZEN  
>  Whoa whoa what do you mean?! How can it be safe for you to stay there all of a sudden???  
>  ZEN  
>  Are you sure?! Do you want me to come over??  
> 
> 
> Me  
>  I'm sure.  
>  Me  
>  Saeran is here.  
> 
> 
>   
>  ZEN  
> 
> 
> ZEN  
>  Saeran???  
>    
> 
> 
> Me  
>  Yes... Saeran  
>  Me  
>  You remember Saeran? Red hair... about 5'9"... looks particularly similar to a certain boyfriend of mine...  
> 
> 
>   
> 
> 
> Yoosung★ has entered the chatroom.
> 
>   
> 
> 
> Yoosung★  
>  Sorry, Zen just started screaming like a girl. I had to come find out why  
>  Yoosung★  
>  And...  
>  Yoosung★  
> 
> 
> Yoosung★  
>  **_SAERAN IS THE HACKER?!_**  
>    
> 
> 
> Me  
>  Well, it's complicated…  
>  Me  
>  But  
> 
> 
>   
> 
> 
> Saeran has entered the chatroom.
> 
>   
> 

I freeze. _Fuck!_ I had not considered for a second that _he would show up here._

I hold my breath.

> Saeran  
>  Really?  
>  Saeran  
>  You're here?  
>  Saeran  
>  And talking about me?  
>  Saeran  
>  While you're avoiding me. Nice.  
>  Saeran  
>  Get your ass out here.  
>    
> 
> 
> Saeran has left the chatroom.
> 
>   
> 
> 
> Yoosung★  
>  Uhh  
>    
>  ZEN  
>  Uhhhhh....  
> 

  


Well, shit. I had been right. He was well aware that I was making an effort to not acknowledge him. Come to think of it, he'd probably heard my attempt to tiptoe and retrieve my phone. Saeyoung always did make fun of me for not being as quiet as I'd thought.  
  
  


My phone continues to vibrate with messenger notifications, but it's forgotten on the bed next to me.  
  
  


Deep breaths.  
  
  


It's just Saeran.  
  
  
_Saeran..._  
  
  
For some reason, the thought crosses my mind that maybe I should tell him about my dream. I can’t help but laugh at this thought. _As if…_  
  
  
In a perfect world, I’d have more time to organize what exactly I’m thinking. In a perfect world, I’d know exactly what to do and what to say.  
  
  
No… in a perfect world, this dream never would have happened. I love Saeyoung. That is the only thing that I know without a doubt in my mind.  
  
  
_Saeyoung…_  
  
  
He’s the one thought that urges me off the bed to face Saeran. I need answers.  
  


* * *

  
Saeran has not emerged from his room when I make my way to the living room and lower myself onto the couch. In the eerie silence, all I can hear is the sound of the clock, ticking away on the wall. It’s after 8pm.  
  
  
I don’t know what I’m more nervous about. This inevitable encounter, or finally, finally having answers.  
  
  
Well, maybe. I remember Saeyoung’s letter. _“I called him because I desperately needed his help, and I asked him not to say anything to you about coming here.”_ I’m not sure if “not saying anything” includes details about their meeting. I guess I’m about to find out.  
  
  
I focus on my breathing while I wait. _Deep. Breaths._  
  
  
What feels like an eternity later, I hear the telltale creak of Saeran’s door. I don’t look up. His footsteps patter lightly across the floor, and when he’s in front of me, I catch a glimpse of his feet, donned in mismatched socks. I recognize the idiosyncrasy immediately as my own. _What?_  
  
  
My eyes remain fixated on the floor until I feel the couch shift from his weight next to me, and our eyes lock at last. His eyes… yup, my mind had recreated them perfectly.  
  
  
_Don’t._  
  
  
I ignore the unfamiliar pull to him, burning in my core, and instead revel for a moment in his presence. I am at least glad that the loneliness that had been consuming me for days has dissipated in his company.  
  
  
“Hi,” I say softly, in a voice that is hoarser, with a drier mouth, than is ideal. I clear my throat and try again. “Um, how are you?”  
  
  
He sighs. “How about we… skip the formalities,” he volunteers. His eyes are sad, and I can’t yet read into them to figure out why. The rest of his expression is impassive. He swallows, and I watch his Adam’s apple bob with the motion. _Stop._ I wait for him to speak; he seems to be searching for the right words. When I meet his gaze again, he goes on. “First of all, I’m sorry.”  
  
  
I’m weighing options in my head, which is flooding with things I’m dying to know. At the forefront, though, is the most basic one that I should probably mention first. “Why did you hack into the security system to get inside of here?”  
  
  
Saeran chuckles, a throaty sound that bubbles up, and I study his face. It remains mostly expressionless, but has softened a bit. “That’s the first question you have? I forgot my Arabic dictionary when I initially left. Then I noticed you weren’t home, and I knew that it would get you here, wherever you were.”  
  
  
“And you couldn’t… I don’t know, call me?”  
  
  
Saeran pulls his phone out of his pocket and twirls it between his fingers. For a second I think it's not working, but then I recall that he was in the chatroom earlier. I am surprised to see that it’s crushed and bent inwards at the center. I question the appearance, until I realize that the curve mirrors the shape of his hand…  
  
  
“What—”  
  
  
“Don’t ask,” says Saeran shortly. "Anyway, it was dead."  
  
  
_Alright then._ “Don’t you think Saeyoung would have gotten worried if he was notified our system was breached?” I ask instead.  
  
  
“He doesn’t have his own phone, so he wouldn’t have gotten the same notification that you did,” Saeran says. “And anyway, he helped me bypass the system. Nobody can really do it but him. I warned him that I would likely have to. So, he knew.”  
  
  
Well, duh. This answer is somewhat obvious. Of course Saeyoung’s system is essentially impenetrable, and surely Saeran would have forewarned him either way. I’m not thinking clearly.  
  
  
I rack my brains for something acceptable to say next, and come up short. I settle for something unnaturally basic, considering the circumstances.  
  
  
“How… is he?” I feel foolish, and duck my head in embarrassment, staring at my knotted fingers. The palpable spark that’s stirring in my abdomen is back, and I’m not sure what else to say. Saeran recognizes the half-assed question as well, in the way that he regards me with puzzlement, but doesn’t bring it up.  
  
  
“He’s fine,” Saeran replies. It’s curt. I’m failing miserably.  
  
  
“Why… didn’t you let me speak to him when he called you?” I whisper. A letter from Saeyoung is more than I could have ever hoped for, but to know that his voice was probably within a fifty foot radius of me, depending on where Saeran was when he received the call, hurts. Saeyoung’s voice is the best comfort I might ask for.  
  
  
“I couldn’t. He asked me not to.”  
  
  
“He asked you not to,” I echo, my voice trailing off, and Saeran nods. I guess that makes sense. But I can’t figure out _why_ …  
  
  
Saeran interrupts my thoughts. “He said that it would take all of two seconds of talking to you for him to seriously consider dropping everything and coming back home. This job he’s doing, it’s _so important_ , and he did not want to think that even for a second you might influence him to stop and come back – no don’t deny that,” Saeran says when he notices my mouth open to interject. “Unintentional or not, subconsciously or not, you’d say something or give some indication that you want him to come back. Even just telling him you miss him. He’s… wrapped around your finger in that way. But it’s no secret to anyone that you want him to come home. We all do.”  
  
  
I suppose I can’t deny that. I certainly wouldn’t refrain from telling him that I miss him, but I thought that was obvious. “I guess you’re right. But… it’s not like I can help any of that. And it’s not like it’s anything he doesn’t already know.”  
  
  
“I know.” He’s back to being short.  
  
  
“Is he safe?” This is a question that I’m afraid to know the answer to. I study Saeran’s face; it’s morose for a brief moment as he contemplates a response, and I realize that it’s very easy for him to lie to me.  
  
  
Sure enough, he’s indifferent again when he replies. “He’s fine.” It’s thick with platitude, and I’m not fooled.  
  
  
“You’re lying.” It’s not a question.  
  
  
Saeran is brooding, regarding me dubiously, and I don’t take my eyes off him. I’m unwavering even as he bites his lip – not unlike the way that Saeyoung does when he is deep in thought, and something warm unfurls inside me. I ignore this effortlessly, unlike the other times. This answer is far too crucial to be distracted now. Even after he stops biting his lip, and runs his tongue over where his teeth have left a tiny dent.  
  
  
Besides, they are twins. They look so much alike. That’s the only reason this action affects me.  
  
  
I think.  
  
  
Saeran finally responds. “He’s… as safe as he can be.” He’s sullen but chastened, and now he’s broken eye contact. My heart rate accelerates, and my mind automatically assumes the worst. Saeran must sense my anxiety, because he looks back up. “I won’t lie to you about that. It’s dangerous, really dangerous. But he’s doing the job well, right now he’s fine. So far, he’s on track to come home soon.”  
  
  
To come home _soon._ This statement comes without a promise. I don’t know _when_ Saeyoung will come back, and I am sure Saeran doesn’t either. Otherwise, he might have said. I don’t ask for more, but then another question occurs to me.  
  
  
“Why didn’t Saeyoung want me to know that you were meeting him?”  
  
  
He looks at me, bewildered, as if the answer is an obvious one. “Because he wanted you to be safe.” Oh, another truistic answer. He must notice my frown, because he elaborates without my persisting. “He thought maybe you might try to stop _me_ , or even follow me…” _What?_ I’ve made crude decisions before, but did Saeyoung really believe I would do something so rash?  
  
  
Saeran sighs heavily, fraught, and I glance at him curiously following his sudden outburst. His lips press together in a hard line, and once again, he’s not looking at me. “Actually…” His tone is laced with anxiety, but his face is inscrutable. I am fully attentive now. He clears his throat. “That’s not true. It wasn’t him.”  
  
  
I’m mystified. What? It wasn’t Saeyoung…?  
  
  
“It was me.”  
  
  
_Saeran_ told _Saeyoung_ not to tell me…!?  
  
  
I stare at him, surprised. If that’s the case, his candor is disarming. But I don’t fully understand. I need clarification.  
  
  
“You…?” My voice trails off, and he nods once, still not looking at me. _Yes…?!_  
  
  
I struggle to wrap my head around the simple act of forming words. Heat rises to my top layer of skin.  
  
  
_Holy shit._  
  
  
Neither of us move for exactly 17 ticks of the clock’s second hand.  
  
  
But then I remember what Saeyoung wrote in his letter. _Don’t be mad at Saeran…_ I had assumed upon reading that it was because what ensued had nothing to do with Saeran? That Saeyoung had planned it all?  
  
  
Or… was it something else? What did they know that I don’t...?  
  
  
Saeran is the first to crack; his body suddenly tenses. “Actually, no, no. Forget I said that.” His hand runs through his hair, a nervous quirk. He’s… nervous?”  
  
  
“But—”  
  
  
“No buts,” he spits harshly, the change in his mood instantaneous. “Forget it.”  
  
  
“Saeran—”  
  
  
“No.” It’s dismissive.  
  
  
_No_ … he’s being defensive. This abrupt change in mood… his brusque responses…  
  
  
His demeanor is uncannily similar to that of when I first met him, when we first started living together. This persona… it’s a defense mechanism.  
  
  
“What did I say about analyzing me?” His sudden stout voice is jarring, shocking me out of my thought process. I wither under his suddenly barbarous stare. "We are done here."  
  
  
And… he’s back in that shell that I have put in maximum effort to penetrate.  
  
  
My head overflows with unspoken recriminations, but this all happens so quickly that I don’t verbalize any of them. He stands without another glance at me, and moves to retreat to his bedroom, but promptly pauses when he is halfway there. “By the way…”  
  
  
I quickly look at him, expectant.  
  
  
“Stop looking at me all the time like you want to rip my clothes off. I’m not your boyfriend.”


	12. Blink

_The subsequent awkwardness and discomfort of the memory of Saeran’s haphazard attempt to take his own life had eventually passed.  
_

  


_Saeyoung was meticulous to never bring it up, but every now and again Saeran and I would barter a knowing look. As forgotten as we might pretend it was, there was no denying that it happened. The angry red marks that were well into healing on his arm, though insignificant, didn’t lie, and from time to time I saw him sneak into his room with an ice pack. I always pretended I didn’t notice.  
_

  


_It had been arduous to rebuild ourselves from this absolute rock bottom, but it wasn’t impossible. The most fundamental step to Saeran’s recovery, which he understood all too well, was agreeing that the treatment was necessary, and thus the active pursuit of it. And Saeran did, dissimilar to his approach following his original release from the hospital almost a year ago; he just didn’t want to speak to anybody else outside of our close-knit group, understandably so. But he interacted with us. He was finally, formally integrated in the RFA. Most of the time he’d watch from the sidelines of our group chats, likely silently judging, but occasionally he gave input, and even these few words were indispensable to our growth as an organization. He was even the one who suggested a potential next party date: as the summer winded down, just as the fall was starting: “the best time of the year”._  
  
  
_Even still, he refused to succumb to therapy that Jumin recommended. But this was fine. He was accepting of mine and Saeyoung’s support, at least; well, more so mine. Mostly, Saeyoung busted his chops in the joking manner he was notorious for, in an attempt to lighten the mood. Sometimes it worked. Most of the time Saeran would swat him away. He and I actually communicated, and I felt that this interaction was beneficial to his recovery. I witnessed firsthand the gradual transition from his stubborn yet guarded isolation within a hard outer shell, to his eventual branching out, more so each day.  
_

  


_We were making progress.  
_

  


_Saeran no longer robotically sequestered himself when Saeyoung and I were together outside of our own room. A little coercing and several heavy sighs later, he sometimes even joined us for movie night, during which Saeyoung and I would sprawl across one couch.  
_

  


_“Come on, Saeran, you want a piece of this,” Saeyoung would joke, patting his lap or slapping his own butt and winking at his brother. Saeran would ignore him.  
_

  


_And then there was the secret spot that Saeyoung and I would retreat to occasionally; it was a clandestine clearing in the woods a hike away from the bunker. We stumbled across it by mistake on day, amidst an overabundance of “Keep Out” and other classic warning signs, all of which were ignored by Saeyoung, naturally. And how glad I was that they were. It was a sanctuary.  
_

  


_I eventually introduced it to Saeran, who also viewed it as a haven. He often accompanied me there, where we would sit in comfortable silence; I’d bring books, and he would bring himself, watching the clouds._

   


_I was in perpetual bliss. Life was finally starting to come together.  
_

  


* * *

  


_It was a particularly wet Saturday, during which a violent storm raged outside with obnoxiously loud rumbles of thunder. Saeyoung looked over to where I was curled on the couch, knees tucked up into my chest, completely engrossed in a set of note cards I had just put together. He didn’t obviate his stare until I finally looked up at him quizzingly. His face was unusually somber. We maintained eye contact for several moments before he said, “Let’s make a blanket fort.”  
_

  


_He gave me no room to argue. He took my hand and all but yanked me off the couch.  
_

  


_His juvenile exhilaration was contagious. Evident in his actions, he was scrupulous in the planning of this fort we were about to construct. First, we dragged the mattress from our bed to the living room, under Saeran’s disapproving, perpetual eye roll from the doorway, where he sucked on a lollipop. Once the mattress was precisely positioned in the center of the room, Saeyoung emptied out our linen closet and dumped the contents on top of it. Saeran scoffed and muttered something about “children” before sulking into the kitchen, but I hadn’t missed the very slight twitching at the corner of his mouth that he desperately tried to suppress.  
_

  


_Close to 45 minutes later, we had draped every single sheet and blanket over the TV stand and lamps, tucked edges into the crevices of the couch and loveseat, and weighed and pinned down all uncooperative sections; we stood back to admire our handiwork.  
_

  


_“Let’s go!” he squealed like a child about to enter a candy shop, or like an adult him standing outside a Honey Buddha chip factory; he grabbed my hand and together we crawled into our masterpiece of a blanket fort._

  


_The interior consisted entirely of our mattress, littered with the rest of the bedclothes from our room, layers and layers of fluffy comforter and throws and pillows that normally took up 90% of our bed.  
_

  


_“It’s dark in here,” I said in a hushed tone, suitable for the dim setting.  
_

  


_“Wooooo~ Dark~ Scaaaaaary!” Saeyoung said, rapidly trailing his fingers up my sides and to my ribs in a tickling motion. I wriggled beneath him, my lung’s ability to do anything but laugh successfully quelled._  
  
  
_“Saaaaaayoung!” I shrieked, squirming against his now unbreakable bear hug. While I struggled and gasped for air, he was unsparing in his tickle ambush.  
_

  


_Even as I kicked my legs, laughing so hard that tears had formed, and it was clear that I couldn’t breathe, he was merciless. Until I jerked one leg an inch too far, effectively knocking over one of the lamps that had served as a foundation, and the entire fort collapsed around us. "Noooooo! All of our hard work!" Saeyoung wailed._

  
  
_He released me for a second, and we both surfaced above the caved-in blankets; I should have known the reprieve would be short-lived. He retaliated in an instant, and before I could escape, he pinned me to the mattress and carried on with his unrelenting assault._  
  


* * *

  
_Saeran was back in the doorway. They hadn't noticed him. From here was the perfect place to watch this scene unfold; the perfect place to maintain just enough distance to not get dragged into it --_ ugh, the thought of that _\-- and the perfect place to observe from afar just how happy these two were with each other. How well they worked together. How their bodies moved clumsily but synchronously._  
  
  
_She tossed her head back in laughter, a jovial sound that rivaled the sun in brightness and wind in breeziness. Her eyes crinkled at the corners, glistening with a hint of tears; she still had that dimple in her right cheek._  
  
  
_But then Saeyoung did notice him._  
  
  
_......._  
  
  
_So he still hadn't told her..._  
  
  
_Maybe if she hadn’t squeezed her eyes so tightly closed… maybe if she had waited a nanosecond longer before doing so… maybe if she just threw Saeyoung the adoring gaze that she could never seem to help… maybe she would have noticed his eye contact with Saeran. Maybe she would have spotted the split second of their locked eyes, his faltering grin, the unobvious hitch in his laughter. Maybe she would have caught the ghost of desolation that flashed across his face, and the ambiguity of secrets contained behind his regretful eyes._  
  
  
_Maybe the indiscernible nod of mutual understanding the two brothers exchanged would not have gotten past her._  
  
  
_Or maybe she might have blinked, and missed it all anyway._  
  


* * *

  
_Clack clack clack clack._ Fingers brush deftly across the keyboard. Typing is second nature.  
  
  
_Click click click._ Repetitive mouse clicking is first.  
  
  
Click there. Drag here.  
  
  
A wipe of the brow.  
  
  
Blink.  
  
  
_Click click --_ A warning pulsates across the screen in vibrant red. Okay, that was _not_ the correct click.  
  
  
Ugh.  
  
  
Focus.  
  
  
_Clack clack clack._ The screen is back to green.  
  
  
Better.  
  
  
_Click click click._ And drag.  
  
  
Hands exhausted yet numb at the same time.  
  
  
Can’t think.  
  
  
Another wipe of the brow.  
  
  
Blink.  
  
  
_Clack clack clack clack clack._  
  
  
Just a little more.  
  
  
A sip of PhD Pepper.  
  
  
_Wait for me._  
  
  
Just a little bit longer.


	13. Vulnerable

_“…work?” I echoed. “What do you mean, work?”_

  


_We were in the bedroom, standing face to face. We had been sitting on the bed, but I sprang to my feet at Saeyoung’s revelation that he would be going away… for work. Whatever that meant…_

  


_But then he didn't look at me. And so it clicked._

  


_”You mean… with those people…”_

  


_His silence gave me the answer I was looking for._

  


_”You told me you were done with that agency! With that kind of work!” My voice was raised, and tears pricked at the corners of my eyes, but I didn’t care. “What the hell were you thinking!?”_

  


_”I didn’t have a choice,” he said quietly._

  


_”No choice my ass,” I spat, mostly to myself. But it didn’t go unheard by him._

  


_“No, I didn’t have a choice,” he repeated, louder this time. His golden eyes were glossed over with regret and sadness to an remote level. I’d never seen this in him before. “They threatened you an unbelievable amount. First, there were threats to hack into the university system – change your grades –”_

  


_I snorted at this. “Do you think I give two shits about my_ grades _when also in the picture is the risk of your LIFE?”_

  


_“You should when it’s such a big dream of yours.”_

  


_“Yeah well, news flash Saeyoung, things sometimes change when you suddenly share your life with another person! Priorities! And—and—that’s just ridiculous to think that I’d care about_ grades _when your life is clearly at risk—”_

  


_He laughed weakly. “If you heard them describe the things they’d do to to the RFA – to you—to Saeran—”_

  


_I wasn’t really listening. “Oh, fuck me, my boyfriend’s been killed, but hey!!! At least I’m on the honor roll! There’s the silver lining!”_

  


_He narrowed his eyes at me at that. “Jesus, stop focusing on the one thing, will you? For two fucking seconds do you maybe want to listen to what I have to say?”_

  


_The ruthless response startled me, and I considered that I was too upset to have this conversation, much less an argument, and I should have walked away at that moment. His expression softened for a moment, but he didn’t back down. “Sweetie, that’s just the tip of the iceberg. You don’t understand the power these people have. When they describe the things they will do to you – how they’ll use the things you love the most against you – and hurt you –”_

  


_“Saeyoung, your first mistake was your continued involvement with these people in the first place! You said you’d STOPPED!”_

  


_He paused before responding. “I-it’s not that simple,” he said. “I wish I could tell you—”_  
  
  
_“Then tell me!” I exclaimed, exasperated. “All these secrets – I sit around quietly all the time, questioning nothing, and what, you’re signing up for things that endanger your life? Talk to me! Let me in.” I stared at him, pleading, but he had trouble holding my gaze._

  


_“I… I can’t.”_

  


_“You can’t!” I parroted, throwing my hands up in defeat. “Let’s just carry on with the secrets, shall we? I love this. It seems to be doing us a_ hell _of a lot of good.”_

  


_He ignored my sarcastic remarks. “I wish it was easy to leave. I wish I could just drop everything and walk away… but there were jobs to finish… dangerous ones. I’m lucky I escaped it for as long as I did… I swear, this is the last one –!” He broke eye contact here to bite his lip, and I was not sure I’d believed him._

  


_“The last one… you mean just like that last time was? Or the time before that?”_

  


_“When you’re in so deep with an agency like this, and you know too much – cutting ties isn’t easy – it’s the line of work. That’s just what it is.” He approached me with a hand held out, which I didn’t immediately surrender to, knowing that it would soften me immediately. I wasn’t sure I wanted to be mitigated to the point where I couldn’t continue the discussion. But eventually I gave in, and let him lightly stroke my cheek as he looked down at me sadly. “I promise, baby. Whatever it takes, this will be the last time.”_

  


_I closed my eyes under his touch, the light fluttering of his fingertips across my cheek a remarkable comfort. I hated arguing with him. While it never really happened, when it did, it was about his job. It was always about his job._

  


_“I just hate knowing you’re out there doing something that is jeopardizing your safety,” I divulged, as if he didn’t already know. “At least when you’re working from here, I have the sense of security that you’re_ here, _and you’re safe.” I sighed, and he toyed with the strands of my hair that fell into his hand. “Just – just elaborate the best you can. What kind of job is this? What makes it so dangerous that I have to worry?”_

  


_He pondered this question for a long time, all the while preoccupied with twirling my hair between his fingers. “It’s… it’s just dangerous because the tiniest mistake comes with the expense of someone else’s safety,” he said carefully when he finally spoke._

  


_I withdrew from his touch so I could observe him properly. “How about, it’s dangerous because it comes with the expense of_ your _safety?”_

  


_“The less lives that are in danger, whether at my sacrifice or not, the better –”_

  


_“Oh no. Oh no, it doesn’t work like that,” I disputed. “With your logic, if this kills you, if you are forcibly removed from my life because of some…_ honorable _act you’ve committed in order to protect others, it’s fine. I’ll be fine, it’s_ better _because at least I’ve still got the loooovely Zen and a Cat Mom to help me through the rest of my life. Right?” He opened his mouth to counter, but I flung up my hand sharply before he could speak. “No, that’s not right. That’s wrong. So give me another reason. That one is not good enough.”_

  


_Saeyoung struggled to find another excuse, evident in the rout painted on his face. I was about to point this out when he said, “No, no. It’s not that I don’t have ‘reasons’, but I need to seriously consider what I can tell you before I tell you—what the job entails – what exactly I have to do –” He took a deep breath. And then another. And another. “Look, babe, it’s just – a lot of dangerous security breaching to be done. I—into national registries – the government system of the United States – the White House – one wrong move and that’s it—”_

  


_“Wait, wait,” I interrupted. “The White House? The United States? What does their president have to do with you? Their government? And why you?”_  
  
  
_He ran a hand erratically through his hair. “I… I can’t disclose any other details. You know this.”_  
  
  
_“The most important detail you’ve_ disclosed _thus far is that they HAD to choose you for the most dangerous job of all. I know you’re the best, but – ”_  
  
  
_He gritted his teeth, and subsequently spoke through them. “You’re. Not. Getting. It. I’m doing this for everyone’s safety. Because that’s what the agency does. They use the things you care about the most as weapons against you. To ensure that I complete the job to the best of my ability. And I have the most potential scapegoats to be threatened with, so that’s why it’s me. So, stop being so damn irrational and_ listen _to what I’m saying – ”_  
  
  
_“Well stop being so noble!” I shouted, and he flinched, but only marginally. “I’m NOT OKAY with you being in danger! What if something happens to YOU? How will_ I _live?!”_  
  
  
_“This is to SAVE YOUR LIVES, I TOLD you at the very beginning, when I MET you, that they would fucking target you – use you as bait –”_  
  
  
_“You are a damn fool if you think –”_  
  
  
_“Yeah, I must be a fool,” he snapped. “I should have known you would never understand. You didn’t a year ago when I first told you, and you still don’t now.” He turned on his heel and stalked out of the room._  
  
  
_I scampered after him, but he was already to the door._  
  
  
_“Saeyoung, don’t,” I said desperately, now with realization. He hesitated for a moment, his finger hovering just over the sensor pad. I held my breath, sure that he’d relent and lower his hand._  
  
  
_And he did. Onto the pad, granting him access, and he sauntered through the now open door. But I didn’t follow. It slammed shut behind him, its echo resonating within the now empty apartment._  
  


* * *

  
I jolt upright before my eyes are open. Icy beads of sweat prickle at my hairline, and roll down my temples to my jawline. My throat is raw, and my erratic breaths come in broken crackles, surefire signs that I’d been screaming. My hands are gripping the blanket like my life depends on it. And maybe it does: my lungs feel constricted, a heavy weight bearing down on my shoulders and tight chest. Yes… something is squeezing my chest.  


  


First I need to focus on my breathing. But it’s hard. My airway is compressed; I am surely suffocating.  


  


“In through your nose, and out through your mouth. Slowly.”  


  


_Who said that?_ It must just be in my head. I don’t have time to analyze the source of the voice, just to follow its instructions before my lungs collapse on themselves. My heart hammers with the effort I’m exerting just to breath properly, and I feel foolish for my incapability. But the rhythmic breathing in through my nose and out of my mouth helps tremendously, and the pressure on my chest slowly diminishes. With a clearer head, I try to determine the onset of my panic attack.  


  


I haven’t had a nightmare since Saeyoung and I have been together, and in his absence, I’ve had two. I can’t pinpoint the content of this most recent one, however; trying to recall it just results in an unnecessarily struggle and subsequent hazy thoughts. My most recent memory is of Saeran's malicious comment before running off last night, and I had curled up on the couch and let the night take over. I must have dozed off there, but I remember nothing that occurred in my sleep. I press my palms so forcefully against my eyes that I see a dancing arrangement of bright lights and stars. When I pull them away, the room starts coming back into focus with my eyes adjusting through the darkness.  


  


I fall against the back of the couch, startled as I make out an outline of someone sitting on the other end of it. His shape is much like Saeyoung’s, however lacking a tiny bit of muscle and fat, and he’s not facing me.  


  


I open my mouth to speak, but my throat is still so dry and tender that I can barely manage a gravelly croak. The figure holds something out to me, and I recoil, still disoriented, when I realize it’s a bottle of water. Appreciative, I take it, and drink greedily.  


  


When I try to talk again, my voice is still gravelly, but at least somewhat articulate. “Saeran…? What are you –” I’m interrupted as the couch shifts with the now absence of his weight as he stands.  
  
  


There is a pause before there is an answer to my half-completed question. “Nobody wants to be alone after that,” he imparts in a low voice, and I follow his silhouette as it moves lithely toward the doorway.  
  
  


He vacillates just for second before exiting. “I know I don’t.”  



	14. Insatiable

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope everyone had a great weekend and a happy Monday!!  
>   
> Some Saeyoung floof and implied nonexplicit deed doing (let this serve as your **warning** ), and then an itty bitty little Saeran fix to soothe my (and possibly yours, though I hope not??) weary soul ;3 I had an exam that took four -- _**FOUR**_ \-- hours like holy moly, and then a three hour psychology lecture today. Ughhhhhh......... but really. Truly. These poor babs just warm my heart like no other. Oh man.  
> 

_There was no way I was going to bed until Saeyoung got home. And his phone was dead. Or he had shut it off. Yeah, it was probably that. In all the time I’ve known him, he never let his phone die. He was probably ignoring me._  
  
  
_It was fast approaching midnight, and my eyelids were already impossibly heavy, but I couldn’t. I was a firm believer in the mantra that spoke of never going to bed angry. Although we’d never had to use it before, never arguing past playful banter, I wasn’t about to give it up now._  
  
  
_Was I wrong to argue…?_  
  
  
_No, I didn’t think that I was. I shouldn’t ever let him think that it was okay for him to just run off and risk his life._  
  
  
_But… he did tell me that he was doing it. Running off and risking his life. Maybe I should have been gentler… more understanding?_  
  
  
_And what’s more, I didn’t even know when he was setting off on this work mission. Next week? Tomorrow?_  
  
  
_My blood went cold mid-pump through my body. No, no, it couldn’t be tonight. It couldn’t… he wouldn’t…..?_  
  
  
_I didn’t know the answer to that. We had never fought before. I wasn’t sure what irrational decisions he was capable of making while under the influence of anger._  
  
  
_He had mentioned the United States. A job that involved a security breach of their capitol. Did that mean… was he going there? They were 14 hours behind us. I’d never talk to him. Would I be able to talk to him at all? I still wasn’t sure if he was going there. Maybe he was working from somewhere else? Why couldn’t he stay home? Gah. So many unanswered questions that would remain unanswered. I hated being in the dark, but knew it was necessary. Why…_ why _did it have to be so necessary…_  
  
  
_The lamp next to me flickered to life, jolting me out of my reverie. I blinked to orient myself to the sudden brightness, and Saeran stood just behind the couch, watching me prudently. “You shouldn’t be sitting in the dark like that.”_  
  
  
_“Yeah…” I said, and he moved to sit beside me on the couch. He stared down at his interlocked fingers._  
  
  
_“Um...” He gazed at me impassively, waiting, and I swallowed a protuberant lump in my throat. “Have you… heard from him? From Saeyoung?”_  
  
  
_Saeran sighed. “No, I haven’t. You mean to tell me you haven’t spoken to him since he left?” I shook my head, and he sighed again, deeper this time. “Come on. Really? I heard every word. It sounded kind of stupid.”_  
  
  
_It was my turn to sigh; I exhaled sharply, exasperated. “I don’t know if it was really_ stupid _, but I think it did escalate to a point that it shouldn’t have.”_  
  
  
_“Right, so it was stupid.” I gawked at him in surprise. “What I mean is, it didn’t have to escalate, right? It was just poor communication between the both of you.”_  
  
  
_“Poor communication…?” I echoed. I didn’t understand. It wasn't communication we had a problem with, unless you count our inability to talk to each other rationally, and without significant voice raising._  
  
  
_More sighing. By now, I’d come to realize that sighing was a second language for Saeran, next to sarcasm. “Look, he told me almost a week ago that this would be happening. His leaving, I mean. And I told him not to put off telling you, but he did.” I frowned. He knew for a whole week? “Before you get mad at that, try to see it from his perspective. I’m not trying to defend him by any means, he’s an idiot for not saying something as soon as he knew. But he was also nervous to tell you. I can at least see why he was, and pretend to understand.”_  
  
  
_I considered what he said. I could understand too what Saeyoung was potentially thinking in the time that he never relayed this information to me. I might have done the same thing. But informing me earlier might have meant more time to mentally prepare for his departure, right? Speaking of which…_  
  
  
_“Do you know when he’s leaving?”_  
  
  
_Saeran deadpanned. “Um.” Suddenly he wasn’t meeting my eyes, indifferently or otherwise, and bit his lip before he responded, “Tomorrow?”_  
  
  
_“Is… that a question?”_  
  
  
_“Uh, it’s more like a, ‘the answer is tomorrow but why am I the one telling you this’ kind of thing,” Saeran particularized. “I’m a little confused as to why that wasn’t one of the first things he said, considering he should be leaving in, oh, I don’t know –” He glanced at the clock, “—8, 9 hours?”_  
  
  
_The flood of iciness in my veins from before reoccurred, and I could only stare at Saeran in disbelief. He was back to twiddling his thumbs and watching. “You… you don’t think…” He looked back up at me. “…that he’s left already?”_  
  
  
_“Don’t really know.”_  
  
  
_“Well… what am I supposed to do? His phone is off,” I wondered mostly out loud, and Saeran shrugged._  
  
  
_“I guess there isn’t a lot you can do but wait to see if he comes back. Maybe –”_  
  
  
_Maybe what, I never found out. Because Saeran’s words were interrupted by a loud beep that startled us both; the same loud beep that sounded whenever someone was granted entry to the bunker. And sure enough, the front door opened, and in moseyed Saeyoung looking extra regretful and extra flushed._  
  
  
_“Well, there you go,” said Saeran, and he promptly rose and proceeded straight to shut himself in his room, clapping his brother’s shoulder on the way._  
  
  
_I abruptly stood and watched warily as Saeyoung all but stumbled toward me. My eyes narrowed at the sudden grin that plastered itself across his rosier-than-usual cheeks._  
  
  
_“Are you drunk?” I asked, taking his face into my hands and peering into his eyes. Sure enough, his skin was hot under my touch, and his eyes were glassy and bloodshot. A garbled laugh escaped from his chapped lips._  
  
  
_“Jesus Christ, Saeyoung, don’t tell me…”_  
  
  
_The keys that dropped from his limp hand answered my unspoken query. Scowling, I bent to pick them up, and placed them on the table by the door._  
  
  
_“You went drinking and then you drove home? Really?” He shrugged, and wandered into the kitchen where he helped himself to PhD Pepper. My eyes didn’t leave him the whole time. After the long-winded conversation we’d just had about_ risking his life _…_  
  
  
_No, I needed to stop immediately. Now wasn’t the time to admonish him. If what Saeran had said about him leaving in the morning was true…_  
  
  
_He would definitely be hearing about this. But it didn't have to be now. He was home in one piece, right now, which is what mattered at this moment._  
  
  
_He was having a hard time opening the can of soda that was in his hand, so I went to help him. His head jerked up in surprise, like he was seeing me for the first time. “Babe! Hey!”_  
  
  
_“Hi, honey,” I cooed, stretching up to kiss him. He bent over and planted a particularly wet one right on my mouth. It seemed best to play along like this for now. “How was your night?”_  
  
  
_“Mmmm, good,” he said, and took a swig from the now-open can I handed back to him. After a loud smack of his lips, he kissed me again. “I missed you! I was gonna stay later… but Zen… Zen said I should come home to you.” Another long sip. So Zen was responsible for this, huh? I’d have a bone to pick with him when I saw him next…_  
  
  
_“I’m tired,” Saeyoung announced suddenly in a droned, almost whiny voice. “I want to go to bed. But do I smell?” He proceeded to take a sniff at himself before proclaiming, “Yes! I do! I must shower, or else my girlfriend with never sleep in the same bed as me! Never mind sleep with me!” He winked at me, and I couldn’t suppress my giggle. I almost forgot for a moment that I was supposed to be mad at him, or at the very least annoyed._  
  
  
_He downed the rest of his drink before tugging on my hand and pulling me out of the kitchen and down the hall. “Come on, babe! Let’s shower!” His boyish snicker at the suggestion of us showering together was delightful, and under normal circumstances, I might have refused, but how could I?_  


* * *

  
_I generally wasn’t a fan of showering at the same time with Saeyoung, primarily because his shower was not particularly made for two people to share, and he was a hot water hog. Even under the premise that we were JUST showering together “to save water”, he lingered under the stream unendingly, as I stood there in front of him, arms crossed and shivering, while he remained completely oblivious._  
  
  
_Drunk Saeyoung, though his movements were considerably clumsier, was much more courteous than sober Saeyoung in that regard. He let me test out the temperature of the water first before I stepped in, following his very chivalrous, “After you!” and gesture into the stall._  
  
  
_True to his ludicrous drunken demeanor, he lathered a palmful of soap in his hands and began to scrub his own body, followed by mine – with his own. I laughed as he rubbed up against me, akin to a human sponge, forcing me under the flow from the showerhead. The warm water was a welcome sensation on my tense shoulders after the day we’d had, second only to his presence. It was so easy to forget he was leaving in the morning._  
  
  
_There was something ravenous about his gaze when I opened my eyes after I’d thoroughly rubbed soap and water out of them; I didn’t even have to question it before he pressed his body up into mine, and against the wall. The sudden cold on my back was shocking. But it was immediately overshadowed by the warmth of my lips suddenly being enveloped by his, moving against mine like someone who had memorized the shape of me, in every aspect, evident in his tongue tracing along the outline of my mouth until it intertwined with mine. His hand was suddenly in my hair, tipping my head more upwards to meet his better, and the dance of our mouths and tongues continued as the water cascaded around us._  
  
  
_His other hand trailed down my side, to my hip, squeezing every bit that he could get ahold of, until finally it rested on my behind and he yanked my body closer to his. I let out a tiny yelp as our bodies crushed together, molding into the shape of one another, the heat emanating off of his skin more blistering than any temperature of the shower stream. Just as I became more immersed in our interaction, he drew back suddenly._  
  
  
_“Wait!!!!” he exclaimed, and I watched him, waiting, still panting. “I came to shower because I am smelly,” he professed, “so no distractions from you, missy!!”_  
  
  
_Again, he was too precious to even be annoyed for a minute. And he was back to his courtly, gentlemanly drunken self as he proceeded to shampoo my hair. My eyes closed under his touch; he knew the most sensitive parts on my scalp and massaged them accordingly. I could only return the favor once he’d finished; his hands absentmindedly rubbed at my back, tracing the path of the water droplets before his fingers, while I rubbed the suds into his head. I pressed my cheek against his chest as I did so. His heartbeat was still accelerated as he was still buzzed, and his skin was warm. When I pulled back to look at him, his face had settled into contentment at the kneading of my fingers. I couldn’t help myself, and kissed him on the neck._  
  
  
_His eyes flew open in mock incredulity. “Gasp!!! What did I say about distractions?”_  
  
  
_Cupping his face between my hands, I stood on tiptoe to reach his lips properly, and he hummed in approval against my mouth. I smiled and mumbled into his lips, “Maybe we should hurry up in here so I can_ distract _you properly?”_  
  
  
_As someone who could stand in the shower for hours, contemplating everything and anything, especially drunk, he’d never finished a shower so quickly in his life._  


* * *

  
_With the water now off, he scooped me off my feet, effectively knocking the wind out of me in surprise. From the ridiculous bridal-style carrying from the shower to the bed (resulting in copious amounts of giggling and several stubbed toes on my part from where I hit the walls), to every single touch between then and now, I knew I was in love with this man._

  


_My nails dug into his back and my legs wrapped around him, squeezing, clasping, holding. In short spurts in sync with his movements, high-pitched sounds varying between squeals and yelps and drawn-out moans were coerced out of me. Our freshly-showered bodies were coated with a thin layer of sweat. Our lips met, and he tasted of salt and Saeyoung. He pulled away his head to press it into the pillow beside my head, releasing a muffled yet lecherous moan. The sound was delicious, and I clenched around him, only driving a particularly penetrating flex of his hips, and a shrill semblance of his name escaped my lips to saturate the air._

  


_I latched onto him with every extremity, reluctant to slacken my encompassing which would only increase the distance between our bodies, however slightly, and I was already not close enough to him. As if on cue, an onslaught of propulsions came in quick succession, and he buried his face where my neck met my shoulder, and his body in me._

  


_Tears sprung to my eyes with the intensity and desperation of the moment, as the pinnacle crept upon us both. We shuddered and stiffened together at the sudden peak. He was relentless, inexorable as he rode out our simultaneous climaxes. We clung to each other unremittingly as we disembarked and floated back down to earth, and nothing existed but our heartbeats in our chests, thumping against each other. For each other._  
  


* * *

  
_I was content with stroking Saeyoung’s hair idly in a repetitive motion across his forehead as he breathed evenly against my chest. I’d assumed that he’d fallen asleep in his drunken – at least partially, at this point – stupor, but still, I was content. Having him here was enough._  
  
  
_I realized I was seemingly mistaken in my assumption that he’d fallen asleep, when he wrapped an arm around me tighter, and slurred against my bare skin, “I don’t want to fight anymore.”_  
  
  
_His ensuing sigh even sounded broken and melancholy. I smiled sadly at him, despite his inability to see it at this angle. “Then let’s not fight.”_  
  
  
_“Why though?” he mumbled, still not lifting his head to speak audibly, and I was perplexed by the question that I thought he’d just asked us_ not _to do. He clarified before I had the chance to ask for it, “Why do we fight?”_  
  
  
_Ah. “We’re both the most stubborn people on the planet,” I teased, and his chuckle into my chest was stifled, but blatant. “And there’s still a world of things to learn about each other, and we have the time to do it. A year is nothing compared to what we will have.”_  
  
  
_“What we will have,” he echoed, and I felt his lips upturn. “Yes, we’ll have it.” A pause._  
  
  
_The succeeding silence, although comfortable, also contained the unspoken truth that both of us were trying to avoid… though we couldn’t avoid it forever._  
  
  
_“We_ will _have it,” Saeyoung said, barely more audible than a whisper. His voice sounded confident, but the air of infinitesimal uncertainty didn’t go unnoticed by me._  
  
  
_“We have forever together,” I avowed pragmatically, and at this, he turned his head, while still resting it on my chest, to gaze up at me. His cheeks were still slightly flushed and tepid._  
  
  
_“Forever…” he repeated again, both his eyes and voice trailing off, but a smile lingered on his lips at the thought._  
  
  
_Or a façade of one. Seeing a smile not reach his eyes felt unnatural, and felt wrong, and when he sighed forlornly, I knew that we couldn’t avoid the obvious facts any longer. Tears threatened to pool in my eyes, but I urged them away. I would not cry in front of him._  
  
  
_“Goodbye… is the hardest part,” I stated simply, to which he didn’t react. For a second, I thought he didn’t hear me._  
  
  
_“I know,” he responded. So he did. “I know.”_  
  
  
_Another silence rang between us, though this one was more uncomfortable than the last. I resumed my caressing of his hair, and he tilted his head into my touch._  
  
  
_“But it’s not really goodbye, you know,” he spoke after a couple of minutes, startling me out of a faint trance I’d been in. “It’s… see you later. I’ll be back soon, you know.”_  
  
  
_I swallowed thickly. That was the scary part, wasn’t it? That we didn’t know_ if _he would make it back? A quick glimpse of his face confirmed this thought. I spoke very slowly after choosing my words carefully. “There are… other reasons why they picked you, you know. You’re the best at what you do. You can do it, sweetie,” I promised him, and kissed the top of his head. He visibly relaxed, whether at the words or action, but whatever little tension lingered was no longer there._  
  
  
_“I’m sorry I yelled at you before,” he breathed._  
  
  
_“I know, babe,” I reassured him. “I’m sorry too. We don’t have to talk about it anymore. Not now, at least.”_  
  
  
_His arms tightened around my midsection, and he buried his face into my chest. The touch was soothing and comforting, until I realized his body was vibrating slightly, and felt the moisture of his sobs on my skin._  
  
  
_I knew that at this moment, words would not be enough. And so I held him, no longer suppressing any tears from flowing down my own cheeks. The stillness of the room, save for our soft trembling in each other’s arms, was no longer comfortable nor uncomfortable, but ideal._  
  
  
_And the silence persisted, until infinite seconds later when the tranquil moment was broken, and his lips voraciously found mine. My emotions mirrored his. It was not gentle or sensual this time; it was carnal, insatiable need. We became nothing but tongue and teeth and skin; amalgamating and melding into one like this night was our last._  
  
  
_Everything we didn’t know was then irrelevant. Each other became all we knew._  
  


* * *

  
She hasn’t budged from the couch. She just continues to sit upright. Staring. At what, who knows. It’s pitch black.  
  
  
She’s strange.  
  
  
_I’m not your boyfriend._ Saeran leans against the doorway, his eyes not leaving the back of her head. _But your boyfriend is one of the only people in this world that cares about me, next to you._  
  
  
She’s unmoving, unrelenting. Her brown hair, usually flowing after her down some path she’s skipped, or bouncing in sync with her laughter, lies still at her shoulders and down her back.  
  
  
_I’m not your boyfriend._ Saeran’s stare remains unwavering. He’s surprised to find that his fists have balled up, and his nails are digging irritatingly into his palm. Annoying.  
  
  
_But your boyfriend asked me to keep you safe, and I promised that I would._  
  
  
She shifts and his breathing hitches, but she doesn't turn or move other than to swipe a hand across her forehead. Probably just adjusting her bangs that always, always fall into her eyes. How could she even see like that? Besides, nothing should ever block those eyes. Nothing should ever prevent any part of her face from being seen.  
  
  
_I might have done it even if he never asked._  
  
  
She sighs in the same direction she’s been facing, and lays back down on the couch. That’s when he realizes. Oh, she was staring at the spot that he’d vacated not that long ago. Maybe he should have stayed. Maybe he should have stayed all night.  
  
  
One more sigh escapes from her lips, and she curls up into a fetal position. A vulnerable position, once again.  
  
  
_I’ll keep you safe._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was arguably (but not really) one of my favorite chapters that I've written. Wow! I have feelings!  
>   
> Ugh.  
>   
> Anyway, side note: I had someone ask me if I listen to any particular music to "fuel" the angst that is contained in these chapters. Believe it or not, I actually listen to classical music!! Aside from being very therapeutic, it really gets the gears spinning for me. One of my favorite musicians, classical or otherwise, is Yiruma. Everything by him or featuring him or incorporating him is beautiful, and ugh, the feels. And aptly enough, he's of South Korean descent. I love me some Korean boys ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°) If you're in need of inspiration, a good cry, or just some rainy-day-staring-out-the-window music (much like I've done today... perhaps I've uncovered the real reason my exam took 4 hours?!?!?!), I highly encourage you to give him a listen. You will not be disappointed!!  
>   
> And as always, thank you for reading!!


	15. Sated

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So sorry for my unexpected hiatus!!! Real life is killing me -- unacceptable!! But on the plus side, I aced both last week's and today's exams, plus a paper I had to write in between! Weeeee!! 
> 
> Okay, onto what you came here for. This chapter contains **explicit sexual content**.
> 
> And none of that "might be explicit, might be nonexplicit" nonsense I spewed before. Yes, they definitely do the sex. And yes, I use words that would definitely make you blush if you had to read it out loud to your mother.

I sit at my desk, my head in my hands, frustrated. I’ve been poring over these books, attempting to study, since I woke up. It must be at least lunchtime by now. I’m reaching for my phone to check the time when it starts ringing, and I jump. Jumin’s face illuminates the phone.  
  
  
“Hey, Jumin,” I greet him, balancing the phone between my ear and shoulder while I try and coax my study materials into some semblance of organization. I wander into the living room once it looks acceptable.  
  
  
“Good afternoon,” he says coolly. “I hope your morning has been going well. I’m calling to ask if you would like to accompany me for lunch today.” With a glance at the clock on the wall, I realize it’s past noon.  
  
  
“Lunch, right,” I mumble. I have a bad habit of being too engrossed in what I’m doing and subsequently forgetting trivial life necessities, such as eating. “Yeah, sure, what time?” I’m in the bedroom now, scrutinizing my reflection, and with a huff decide that I’m not nearly as presentable as I should be for meeting up with Jumin. Time to rummage through the closet for something acceptable.  
  
  
“I will send Driver Kim on his way to collect you,” Jumin replies over several overbearing background noises. “Will 20 minutes suffice for time?” Another glance in the mirror tells me that no, it absolutely won’t, but before I can say this, Jumin says, “I must go. See you soon,” and hangs up the phone.  
  
  
I scowl in frustration at my reflection again. I’ve neglected my appearance for some time now, specifically in the approximately three weeks that Saeyoung has been gone. These days have passed in a blur. With the end of August fast approaching, I have entrance exams to look forward to, and I’ve busied myself with studying, and nothing but studying. This results in donning nothing but sweatpants and a randomly selected t-shirt of Saeyoung’s, and shutting myself in the computer room for hours.  
  
  
And then there’s the newly awkward air between Saeran and myself, the one that I can’t comprehend, but know that he wouldn’t clarify no matter how many times I ask. We usually seclude ourselves to our respective activities, and limit our communication to only the absolute necessary. We’re back to simply coexisting in the same household.  
  
  
It’s certainly unfortunate if nothing else, but a relief, at that. I haven’t forgotten my erotic dream… and how could I? My thoughts are tamer now with his insistence to remain out of my field of view at every chance, and his general absence, but somewhere… somehow, deep down, the amatory fantasies linger...  
  
  
His sudden refusal to interact with me all began on the day that he returned from helping Saeyoung, with whatever he needed help with. He had approached me, and we were fine, and then suddenly… we weren’t. Had something happened with Saeyoung? Did something go wrong? He mentioned something about... not Saeyoung wanting to keep their reunion a secret, but Saeran?  
  
  
I asked myself these questions every single day, but I knew there was no real point. The only person who would be able to elucidate was Saeran, and he just wasn’t speaking to me if he could avoid it.  
  
  
Deciding not to overthink it any further, I focus more on dressing in something more socially acceptable and restraining my wayward hair somehow. Jumin’s timing is impeccable; of course, he is never anything less than satisfactory appearance-wise, and doesn’t understand that sometimes people are unprepared for these kinds of ordeals. I settle for a sundress and pin back my hair; this will have to do. And just in time – my phone rings again, informing me of Driver Kim’s arrival.  
  


* * *

  
Jumin is waiting patiently for me when I arrive at the restaurant of his choosing. It’s set off merely feet from the pier, and today is a beautiful day. I’m glad that I’ve chosen to wear this particular dress; it will be nice to get a little sun after being cooped up indoors for so long.  
  
  
Jumin rises from his chair when I approach, and like a true gentleman, pulls my chair out for me. I notice that he’s taken it upon himself to order me a glass of wine. I don’t bother to argue about having wine at this time of day – or the fact that it’s still technically during work hours for him – and when I bring it to my lips, I’m glad that I didn’t. It’s crisp and refreshing, and I realize that I haven’t hydrated much today, either. We sit in silence briefly as I absentmindedly sip at it.  
  
  
“Thank you for joining me,” Jumin says finally, and I lower my glass. “I hope you don’t mind, but I’ve ordered for both of us. I don’t have much time, but I have been wanting to speak with you.”  
  
  
I open my mouth to tell him I don’t mind, that I’m sure I’ll enjoy whatever it is he’s ordered for me, but he doesn’t give me the chance. Some things never change, and one thing about Jumin that will never change is his complete inability to let others get a word in when there’s something he wants to say.  
  
  
“If you recall,” he begins, and I lift my wine back to my lips, sure that I’ll need it for whatever he’s about to say. “Saeran suggested a date for our next party being early fall, which, as I’m sure you have realized, is fast approaching. In about a month and a half’s time, give or take. Have you by any chance been keeping up with the emails you’ve received? You are less active in the chatroom nowadays, but several of us have reached out to potential guests who have surely contacted you by now.”  
  
  
I freeze mid-sip. Well, fuck. This was worse than I’d imagined. I hadn’t thought about the party at all.  
  
  
“Umm…” I look sheepishly at Jumin, who’s gazing at me indifferently. I’m sure he expects my answer. “To be honest, Jumin, there’s been so much happening between Saeyoung and school and –”  
  
  
He sighs, which confirms my suspicion that my answer was already suspected. I bow my head slightly in shame. It had been irresponsible of me to forget, and I’m certain that he’s about to admonish me for it. To my surprise, when I peek back up at him through my bangs, his hard, stern look has softened.  
  
  
“You have been going through a lot, and I know you’ve been especially busy with your studies,” he states, surprising me further. Jumin… being… understanding? “But please, from this point onwards, do not shirk your responsibilities, intentional or otherwise. There are guests expecting your correspondence.” Ah, not understanding for very long.  
  
  
“I’m sorry,” I mutter. “You’re right, I was being negligent. I’ll check the email address when I get home and answer them promptly.”  
  
  
“Assitant Kang and I are already hard at work on the preparations for it,” Jumin says, and his authoritative, scolding attitude is back, “and surely Saeyoung wouldn’t be happy about you being so careless.”  
  
  
My face grows hot. Saeyoung. Of course he would be disappointed. And his disappointment in me is the last thing that I want.  
  
  
“Right. Sorry, Jumin,” I apologize again. With a curt nod, we come to a mutual understanding. And as if on cue, our lunch has arrived. It looks like a lobster roll; apt for the setting, and for the time of year. I take a bite, not realizing how hungry I actually am. This must be what Saeyoung feels like when he works for hours on end without any break.  
  
  
I wonder if he’s taking a lunch break at this moment.  
  
  
I wonder if Saeran is, too.  
  
  
Jumin suddenly speaks after taking a few bites of his own sandwich. For once, his interrogation is welcome, and even though thoughts of Saeyoung are now forgotten, thoughts of Saeran are, too.  
  


* * *

  


Following my lunch with Jumin, Driver Kim takes me back home. When I climb out of the car and step through the gate surrounding the bunker, I’m surprised to find Saeran outside. He’s leaning casually against the side of the house, nudging the ground repeatedly with his foot. I’m less surprised by his presence in the yard, especially on a day like today, and more surprised that he looks up expectantly as I shut the gate behind me. He seems to be waiting for me, and accordingly stands immediately upright as I approach him cautiously.  
  
  
“Hi,” Saeran says. His voice sounds foreign to me. His hand is rubbing at the back of his head as he stares back down at the ground. Two more nervous habits that I recognize as Saeyoung’s: the hand gesture and the immediate lack of eye contact.  
  
  
“Hiya,” I reply guardedly. It really has been almost three weeks since he actually initiated a conversation with me. My heart skips and trips over itself in double time. Silently I urge it to settle down, and it does, until eye contact is made between the two of us. Oh… I have forgotten the distinct cyan shade of Saeran’s eyes, and how they reduce to a pale celeste at this angle under the sunlight. My heart picks up in triple time. I ignore it.  
  
  
“Will you… take a walk with me?” Saeran asks. He’s nervous, too, evident in his eyes flickering between mine and the ground he’s still kicking.  
  
  
He doesn't exactly wait for an answer before he's through the gate that I just entered. I hurry to keep up with him, but he’s got at least 6 inches on my height and his stride is brisker than mine. Plus, the shoes I’ve chosen to wear aren’t ideal for a faster pace than regular walking.  
  
  
Which proves to be even more of a problem as he leads me to the edge of the woods surrounding our house. I glance down at my ensemble, debating whether I should be donning a dress and sandals in the woods, and open my mouth to suggest this when he turns around and holds out a hand to me.  
  
  
“We aren’t going far,” he says, appearing to sense my concern, and I slip my hand into his. It’s as warm as I remember it being on the first day, and just as smooth.  
  
  
Luckily the path we follow is mostly straight and paved clear, with only a slight incline. There’s little sound but that of our breathing, our feet snapping twigs underneath our steps, and the occasional song of birds to each other from their nests, high above our heads. The sunlight pours onto us, reflecting through the leaves in a bright jade color. Passing through these points, Saeran’s hair shines the same russet shade as Saeyoung’s in its wake. I spend considerably less time admiring the surroundings, or even looking to see what I was stepping on, than I did watching the person in front of me, and staring at our entwined fingers.  
  
  
And then, another hundred or so yards ahead of us, I could see a break in the trees, a buttery glow in the center of the emerald that surrounded us.  
  
  
We stepped together through the canopy formed by the fringes of the trees, and before me is one of the most beautiful sceneries I’ve ever seen.  
  
  
We find ourselves in the middle of a vast meadow, spreading out endlessly around us. The sun is a little off center, but still beams down onto us, permeating the circle with dazzling golden hues and warmth. The wind rustles through the grass, and a blanket of wildflowers in every shade is swaying, strewn across the majority of the ground in a stunning gilded display. Saeran gives my hand a tug, and I snap from my awestruck daze, following him to the very midpoint of the enclosure.  
  
  
We sink to the ground, me more sensibly and conservatively considering my outfit. Saeran releases me and leans back on his hands, gazing up at the sky. I follow suit. Cumulus clouds roll across the illuminated bright azure canvas, numerous enough to offer shade every so often, but few enough that we didn’t lose the vivid blue for too long.  
  
  
We sit in comfortable silence for a long time, enough that sun has moved enough to notice, casting different shadows into the meadow, the light now colored a deep viridian.  
  
  
I toss my hair lightly to the side and notice that Saeran is watching me, and I flush, wondering how long he’d been favoring me over the panorama above us. He diverts his eyes back toward the sky before I can speak, and once again beats me to the punch.  
  
  
“I’ve been coming here every day,” he says softly, “thinking.” He’s perched back, perfectly still in the grass, aside from his hair, which is ruffling with the wind. He sighs, and the sound strikes me as lovelier than the birds that are still singing in the trees.  
  
  
“I suppose I owe you an explanation,” he goes on after a couple of moments, and my undivided attention is now his. I watch him, waiting. He takes a deep breath, and then another. “The reason I have been… so out of touch, is.” He swallows, and I’m at it again, following the skin shifting on his throat as he does so. “I have, realized some things.” His eyes are suddenly on me, intent, and I feel a ruddiness creep to my cheeks under the unexpected stare.  
  
  
“I promised Saeyoung I would keep you safe in his absence,” he continues, infinite seconds later. “And I didn’t tell you that I was meeting him because…” His voice trails off, again, and I follow his eyes to where they lay now, at the diminutive distance between our hands, both splayed out on the ground. With a tiny adjustment of his hand placement, his fingers are brushing against mine. I don’t dare to breathe. Another sigh escapes him and he speaks again. “Because I just really wanted you to be safe. Probably safer than he’d expected when I made that promise to him.”  
  
  
I release a bated breath, but he’s not letting me off the hook that easily. “And… I wasn’t… jealous, not really,” he says, but this time he looks like he’s struggling to form proper sentences. It doesn’t help that he’s distracted by his fingers idly tapping against mine. “Jealous isn’t the word… I don’t think… but I knew the second that I told you he called me, your face would light up like it always does, but it would light up for _him_ , and I—I wanted—” He frowns as his confidence falters, and he stumbles over his words, and I can tell that he’s internally kicking himself. I move my hand and place it on top of his, and his shoulders and expression relax at the touch. He swallows again. “I don’t know what I wanted. But I didn’t want that.”  
  
  
I look at his face, but he doesn’t return my eye contact; he’s fidgeting with the grass beneath his fingers, and watching that attentively instead. And then, a flurry of wind rushes over us at that moment, swirling his ginger hair up and sweeping it to the side. This newly full view of his face reveals a rosy color I have never seen on him before.  
  
  
I realize that the picturesque vistas surrounding us from every angle pale to him in radiance. I also realize that I’m unwilling to take my eyes off of him, sure that the second that I do, he’ll disappear, too good to be true, the very earth swallowing him up to claim his beauty as its own.  
  
  
Hurriedly I think that it’s because he looks just like Saeyoung.  
  
  
But then he finally looks back at me, his aquamarine eyes boring into mine; they are the only part of him that is quite unlike his identical twin, and the fleeting flutter of my heart betrays me.  
  
  
I barely manage to initiate an exhale before his hand is off of mine, and on my chin instead, effectively hitching said breath halfway out. _When did he get so close?_ I don't linger on this thought for long, because he tilts my chin upwards so my face is level with his. He hesitates briefly, and something hammers in my chest along with my heart. Is it anticipation? Am I internally screaming for him to stop?  
  
  
The moment is prolonged for a second longer, and he gauges my reaction, but I'm too busy remembering how to breathe to give anything away.  
  
  
"I think I'll kiss you now," he breathes, and presses his lips against mine.  
  
  
I have half a second to decide if I even want it before the kiss suddenly intensifies. He's still slightly unsure with his actions, his hands moving to the back of my head, but not quite pulling my face more into his. But soon, we fall into a rhythm against each other's mouths, lips parting, breathing in each other's air.  
  
  
Yes, I want this.  
  
  
His fingers entangle in my hair, and before I know it I mimic his actions, and we deepen the kiss. Unintentionally I moan against him, but he uses this as an opening instead, and slides his tongue gently between my lips. Tentatively, our tongues stroke one another in an erotic dance.  
  
  
I need this.  
  
  
I have just begun to savor it when he pulls back, and my face drops to a pout. My mouth parts to speak -- to say what, I have no idea -- but his finger is suddenly there, on my lips. Which are still very much on fire. I probably couldn’t even speak if I wanted to. And then my hand is enclosed in his, warm and soft, supple and sure in its grip. The uncertainty is gone. He’s pulling me to my feet. And now he's leading me somewhere. I don’t know where.  
  
  
But I’d follow him anywhere.  
  
  
I’m acutely aware of my own heartbeat. It’s pounding in my ears. Deafening. He’s holding on tightly to me. He must feel it.  
  
  
_What am I doing?_  
  
  
…I’m not sure, but I think I like it.  
  


* * *

  


Saeran’s bed is considerably more comfortable than Saeyoung’s. I attribute this to the fact that the mattress is much newer, and used by one less person.  
  
  
I only know this because it’s pressing into my back, or rather, I’m pressing against it. He’s pinning me to it. With his body. His hands tugs my hair, pulling my head back, exposing my neck. I feel his breath, hot and heavy under my ear, and down my jawline, tracing a path teasingly slow, back and forth, all the while barely making contact.  
  
  
Suddenly, his mouth is on mine again, dominant, massaging me, and I greedily comply. His plunder feels desperate, and I groan against him, drowning in the current that washes over me with our contact at last. This kiss is more confident, his lips authoritative as he forces mine apart. I feel his sharp intake of breath as our tongues intertwine, his leading mine in a sweet, sweet dance. His predatory bearing is mildly thrilling. Just as I tilt my head for more, he draws back and gazes at me, unwavering. We maintain unblinking eye contact.  
  
  
“I want you,” he says matter-of-factly, and I practically convulse. His fevered words intensify a desire in me to unbearable levels. There isn’t a cell in my body that isn’t aflame with need for him. When I finally remember to take a breath, his mouth curls into a devilish smile. "You think I haven't noticed the way you'd been looking at me? I think you want me too." I whimper in response, to which his smile widens.  
  
  
My eyes flutter closed in an overwhelming wave of sensation, sweeping from my cores to my most sensitive parts, and I clench at the feeling. When I open them, he’s poised over me, taking pleasure in watching me shudder beneath him. His body doesn’t betray his words, his eyes saturated with want and his erection straining against his pants. _I’m doing this to him._ He never averts his gaze from mine, and grasps the hem of his shirt as he makes to pull it over his head.  
  
  
Now topless, he leans forward again, and I watch his muscles go taut as he supports himself, hovering over me. He’s at my ear again, his whisper sending shivers down my spine. “I just need you to say yes.”  
  
  
Again I’m speechless, my thoughts thoroughly scattered, and I’m unable to find any semblance of judgement in my head. All I know is my fingertips are tingling, itching to be on every inch of him.  
  
  
“Yes,” I manage in a broken, hoarse whisper, without a second thought. And he raids my mouth again with his.  
  
  
During our kiss, his fingers fumble at my bare thighs, hitching my dress up. His touch is exquisite and blazing on the skin of my legs. I skate my hands over his broad chest, committing each ridge and line to my memory, feeding the debauchery in me with his details.  
  
  
“Do you trust me?” he mutters against my mouth.  
  
  
“Yes,” I repeat, scantly audible.  
  
  
I feel his smirk as it forms before I see it, and when he lifts himself back up, I’m too drunk with sensation to comprehend the meaning of it. His expression has erupted into one beyond lust – it’s full of carnal need.  
  
  
“You have no idea,” he says, his fingers entangling themselves in the hem of my dress, “how badly I’ve wanted you like this.” Up he pulls it, exposing my lower half. “I’m going to kiss every inch of your skin,” he tells me, as he tugs the flimsy fabric closer to my head, “and then I’m going to fuck you.” I would gasp if my senses were not stunned into inertia. In one swift movement, my body is free from the confinement of clothing, and I lay before him, in nothing but now-sodden panties. He ogles down at me, and makes no moves to touch me further. Instead, he luxuriates in his private viewing session, and I shift, suddenly feeling exposed. I move to conceal myself, if only slightly, but he takes my wrists in his hands and keeps them pinned at my sides. “Now,” he growls low in his chest, “keep still, or I’m going to make you.”  
  
  
His provocative threat causes me to instinctively tilt my hips upward, and his smirk is back.  
  
  
Starting back at the spot where my jaw meets my ear, he takes his sweet, torturous time fulfilling his promise to kiss every inch of me. Intermittently switching between gentle nibbles and light brushes of his lips, he traces a path down my body, leaving damp spots in his wake, and I shiver as cool air touches me there. He’s in no hurry. I writhe and wriggle, mewl and beg, but every plea that trips off my tongue is ignored. From my fingertips to the bend of an elbow to a shoulder and across a collarbone he nips and kisses, before brushing across my chest to the other side.  
  
  
When his mouth is back at the hollow of my throat, his eyes meet mine, before resuming his path down my body. He runs a single finger down the center of my chest, along my sternum, in between my breasts. I shiver, but I’m instantly warmed by his lips following the same trail of his finger, and he lightly brushes a finger over one of my nipples, which instantly hardens. He continues to caress it gently, barely making contact, as his head moves to the neglected breast. He lowers his head, only to swirl his tongue in circles tantalizingly around the nipple, leaving it neglected regardless.  
  
  
In a sudden, lecherous look up at me, he flicks his tongue across the bud, and I moan in relief at the abrupt sensation. Mercilessly he closes his mouth around it, moving his tongue in tender, sensual circles, his hand kneading at my other breast. He groans against me in delight, worshiping me, taking his fill of my taste as I squirm under his deft touch. Each stroke and lap of his tongue drives my desire higher and higher, fuels the ache of need in my abdomen further and further, tormenting and erotic and exquisite all at once. He grinds up against my leg, and in a quaking spasm, I cry out another moan, and he halts his sensual torture.  
  
  
“Shhhh,” he urges huskily, before placing his mouth back on me where he left off, and continues downwards. His hands move in tandem with his mouth, touching, squeezing, pulling everywhere he can. My skin is left ablaze following his path, and finally he reaches the end of my navel.  
  
  
“I’ll just do away with these,” he says, taking my panties between his teeth while ravenously gazing up at me. I’m not breathing as he provocatively pulls them down using only his mouth. I jerk my hips upward to help with his motions, and they slip off; he tosses them aside. His full focus has now shifted to his next target.  
  
  
“So wet for me already,” he hums, and traces a gentle line down my now dripping slit. I start to squirm again, but force myself to stop. He brings the finger to his mouth, and slips it between his lips. His eyes close as he moans in approval, and alongside the rapture that is now painted on his face, I nearly combust.  
  
  
“You taste even better than I imagined,” he says, and his eyes bore into mine, a predatory glint in his stare. Before I can react, my thighs are being wrenched apart, and his mouth is on me.  
  
  
His tongue finds my swollen clitoris, massaging it rhythmically, slowly at first, focusing on one tiny spot before evolving into longer strokes. His tongue is velvet against me, and his face is contorted with pleasure as he tastes me. No amount of erotic dreams could ever compare to the reality that’s before me. Every swipe and swirl of his tongue inches me closer to the edge, and I’m spinning, thinking of nothing but the overriding pleasure that comes out of his avaricious devouring. His licks persist, deep and broad. I rock my pelvis as he continues his relentless assault, and he rides the waves of my hips with his adroit mouth. I twist and buck against his touch, my fingers scrabbling for the sheets, and the need for release is almost painful. My whole body stiffens as I approach my peak, and I’m ready for it, the spastic, imminent climax that’s about to happen…  
  
  
But he stops then, and draws back, his face is glistening with my arousal. He is ethereal. Now upright, his hands are at the button on his pants, and he pauses. I squeeze my thighs together, hoping to cease the prominent throbbing that ensued in the absence of his touch. His pants are still overextended, if not more than before, threatening to burst open. Not averting his eyes from mine, he unbuttons his pants and drags the zipper down slowly. My eyes wander to watch. I am not displeased to see that he is not wearing anything underneath, and his erection finally springs free.  
  
  
“See something you like?” he sneers, and without looking away from me, takes himself in his hand and pumps once, twice. A bead of precum glistens on the top and trails over the edge. I bite my lip, aware that my own arousal is still seeping out of me. With fluid grace, he’s back on all fours—or rather, threes, as his hand does not leave the base of his cock—hovering over me.  
  
  
“Do you still want it?” he asks, rubbing his swollen head against my drenched opening that is now yearning to be filled. He circles it, teasing, and I clench with every movement. I brace myself for the sublime penetration that will soon slake my quivering desire. I have nothing left in me but lust, longing, hunger, and need; I want to return his sass, but I’m beyond that. I can only manage a nod, which presents as a slight, overeager jerk of my head, but it’s enough for him.  
  
  
“Good, because I have one more promise to keep,” he breathes, and putting his entire weight behind the drive, he sinks into me.  
  
  
It’s utterly and entirely exquisite. The stretch and glide of his cock coaxes waves of pain and pleasure and relief. A combination of moaning and mewling spills out of me, and a craggy hiss manages to escape through his gritted teeth. We both still as we adjust to the new sensation; it’s aching and rapturous at the same time. The primal satisfaction consumes us, and in a moment of brief, feral eye contact, he starts to move in steady, measured strokes.  
  
  
In and out he jerks unremittingly, a grip on my hips yanking me forward to meet his thrusts each time. My body tenses in anticipation every time draws back, his head all but free of me, before slamming back in, filling me to the brim. My head is thrown back into the pillows and he lowers his face into the crook between my neck and my shoulder, and we breathe raggedly but in sync with his thrusts and with each other. The friction at last is just far beyond anything I might have imagined it would be, beyond any measly comprehension I might have gathered an inkling of from a dream. No longer holding back, we moan unabashedly into each other’s shoulders, and the sound seems to fuel him into a quickening pace.  
  
  
My fingers find his back and I dig into him, clamping my legs around his hips as they rock into me. I tilt my pelvis upward, and this shift alongside a finite adjustment of his own brings my sweet spot to the surface, and he’s now pounding into it.  
  
  
“S—Sae—oh—ah—yes, there!” I finally find my voice to cry out. He hits the spot, over and over again, dead on, and I blubber out a blend of sobs and moans and garbled versions of his name.  
  
  
I fumble for every part of him that I can reach, urging him to press against me. I want to feel him more. Close isn’t close enough. He obliges, his pace never once faltering. The sweet sound of his guttural moans is empowering, and each inward thrust pushes another sound out of me in sharp, rhythmic bursts. Each time he reaches his hilt, he twists his hips ever so slightly, a sensation that quakes through my entire body.  
  
  
My knuckles are bloodless with their grip on him, my eyes unsure of whether they want to snap open or squeeze shut. I settled for shut, reveling in his pulsing stabs. We are nothing but skin and sounds. The telling clenches of the muscles in my slick channel are back, my entire body tensing as I grow closer to the peak he’d inched me toward before. This time he doesn’t abruptly stop; instead, his rams grow fiercer, more desperate, in time with the headboard banging loudly against the wall.  
  
  
“You better cum for me,” he demands, and I shudder with his words and the ever-growing tremors coiling my core outwards that threaten my very foundations. Still, he never misses a beat, keeping up with the frantic pace of his pumping hips and the deep moans that follow. I feel him stir inside me and I know he’s close, too. He presses his lips to mine, and I taste myself on them still, salty and sweet. Then, the spiraling starts; I’m teetering dangerously over the edge, and it takes one, two, three more thrusts before I’m falling, falling, falling. Every bit of sanity I have contained until now is gone, and release pulses through me, my inner walls rippling, quaking with a searing, blinding delight. I explode into a glorious orgasm that rips me apart, turning my vision black and then white and then who knows what color; all I know is I’m pulsating around his thick shaft, spilling every fluid in my body onto him.  
  
  
The vulnerability of the moment is too intimate, and I cry out his name against his lips.  
  
  
At that, he too loses his rhythm, and with the deepest moan of all that vibrates through me, he comes apart spectacularly.  
  
  
His entire body falls lax on top of me, and he withdraws his now softening cock, his rapid breathing finally slowing. Emancipated, panting, and spent, I trace lazy circles into the skin of his back. The feel of his body pressed up against mine is not necessarily something I’m unaccustomed to; he is not built unlike Saeyoung. But I’m staring up at an unfamiliar ceiling, from an unfamiliar bed. My ensuing sigh must be mistaken for one of contentment, because he brings a suddenly shy hand up my side and wraps it around me.  
  
  
_What have I done?_  
  
  
…I’m not sure, but I liked it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay... yeah. I have a confession to make.  
>   
>  **This is not quite how the story actually goes.** Shhh, don't tell the others. This chapter was _only written_ to get my sexy Saeran fix, to appease the filthy sinner in me, and in all of you (who are you kidding, I am not the only one. I know you're out there). Consider it a... bad ending if you will ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°) There is a "branch" somewhere in this chapter (the location of which I'll keep as my own little secret, until next time. I can't give them all away!), which I'll explain at the start of the next chapter. Blame Cheritz for putting the idea of branches in my head!! It's all their fault!  
>   
>  Ahem. Right. Yes. Please proceed onto chapter 16 to follow the regular progression of the story. This will be published very very soon!! I pwomise. Oh and pls don't hate me
> 
>  
> 
> ~~For the record, I considered adding this note to the start of the next chapter, but I'm not _that_ evil.~~


	16. Heartbeat

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So sorry for the unexpected hiatus!! There were a couple of snow days here that subsequently resulted in school/work being cancelled, and things had to be rearranged and rescheduled accordingly, including exams. It was just a mess!! Anyway, I hope everyone has been doing well!
> 
> Friendly reminder of the branch off in the middle of the last chapter! Italicized font at the beginning here is where it ends/begins! (This and the content immediately prior can be found in chapter 15!)

_I realize that the picturesque vistas surrounding us from every angle pale to him in radiance. I also realize that I’m unwilling to take my eyes off of him, sure that the second that I do, he’ll disappear, too good to be true, the very earth swallowing him up to claim his beauty as its own._  
  
  
_Hurriedly I think that it’s because he looks just like Saeyoung._  
  
  
_But then he finally looks back at me, his aquamarine eyes boring into mine; they are the only part of him that is quite unlike his identical twin, and the fleeting flutter of my heart betrays me._  
  


* * *

  
“So, let’s talk.”  
  
  
Saeran is gazing at me like it’s the first time he’s seeing me – really, truly seeing me. And maybe it’s the first time I’m seeing him. I know that I've never seen him under this kind of light. He is impeccably gorgeous on a different spectrum from Saeyoung entirely, and I’d be kidding myself immensely to deny that much, at least. That’s not to say that I found him _more_ gorgeous than Saeyoung… no, that man is the patron deity of good looking and the love of my life.  
  
  
Funny how I have to keep reminding myself of that…  
  
  
But really, Saeran is really something otherworldly. At certain angles, the sunlight hits his eyes and dances across the vibrant turquoise surface, and other times it dims to a pale aqua. The exact distance that his lips part when he takes a deeper-than-normal breath doesn’t escape me, as well as the angle at which his hair floats up from his forehead and drifts back down with the breeze.  
  
  
When we first met, it wasn’t all that unusual for both of us to sit in careful silence, but as our relationship progressed the longer we lived together, one of us always had something to say. Now, we break eye contact, subsequently reverting back to our former communication tendencies; both waiting, holding our breath, for the other to speak, both staring down at our fingers, which are nearly intertwined.  
  
  
“I…” he says after an eternity, and my breathing catches mid-inhalation. “Don’t know… how… to........” His words are carefully chosen, timed, weighed before he says them, and I hang on to every syllable. “How to feel,” he decides with a swallow, and his face flushes a shade of pale pink that only glances upon the heat that courses through me at his words. I gaze at him curiously, unsure of where he’s going with this. When he doesn’t immediately follow up, I gaze back down at our hands, surprised to find that I have subconsciously started to lightly caress his fingers with my own rhythmically. He follows my eyes, but his face reads indifferent, giving nothing away about his feelings. But I don’t stop, and he doesn’t pull away.  
  
  
Saeran clears his throat, and my eyes jerk back up to his face, expectant. “I don’t know how to feel,” he repeats, and I’ve barely opened my mouth to ask him exactly what he means when he starts to elaborate. “For the longest time, I was… deprived of any emotions of my own. Nothing that I… had, belonged to me. My feelings weren’t mine. My mind wasn’t mine… and my thoughts weren’t mine.” Oh. He’s referring to his time in Mint Eye. My expression shifts to obviously morose, and he gives me a sad smile. “I was basically nobody. I was just made to play the part of whatever was needed of me. And I… liked it. I never complained, and I _enjoyed_ that I was useful to… Rika. Even though we did horrible things, to you and to Saeyoung and the rest of the RFA, I was… happy. Or what I thought to be happy. I truly believed I was in Paradise.” His voice breaks, and I don’t will him to immediately continue. Instead, I intensify slightly the rubbing of circles against his fingers with my own, and it serves as a welcome distraction until he’s ready to speak again.  
  
  
“After I left, my time was spent in the hospital and then basically quarantined within Saeyoung’s bunker. I was miserable. I knew miserable, because I had been miserable for most of my childhood. But having the feeling back as my own – not under the influence of drugs, or anything that anybody put in my body – was foreign to me. It was a strange sensation and I decided I would rather shut myself away than face it, face others. I thought I would never be ready to _feel_ again.  
  
  
“I wasn’t even content for the longest time. Saeyoung tried so hard… so..... _hard_ to make me happy, make me forgive him. It was annoying at first. And rebuilding that trust was one of the most difficult things I’ve ever had to do.” His face contorts with a pang, but he snaps out of it almost instantly. “Deep down… somewhere deep down, I knew it wasn’t his fault. But it was so hard to truly convince myself of that. I struggled for a long time, and Saeyoung knew it. It only made him try harder. I tried so hard to feel better, for his sake, if not my own… it never worked.  
  
  
“But I knew of two things that did make me happy, for sure: clouds, and ice cream. He used to take me outside when our mother was away when we were younger to look at the clouds and eat ice cream. They both always made me happy, and never stopped doing so. Once I was home from the hospital, Saeyoung didn't let me outside to watch the clouds, at first, but there was that skylight in his room, and I’d sneak in there when nobody was home to look at the sky.  
  
  
“And then you moved in… and out of nowhere, I felt… lighter. You brought with you a sort of… contagious… positivity. I found that I didn’t want to cringe whenever Saeyoung entered a room. I was able to hold half a conversation with him. He was much less of a pain with you around. So... I could truly appreciate his efforts. It didn’t make sense...but I also had no real desire to fight it.  
  
  
“And then you did something Saeyoung never did... which was go grocery shopping. He could live off of his stupid chips and soda. But not you. You cooked, and you bought food weekly. Among the things you bought was... ice cream. Maybe he told you that I like it. He never went in the freezer, though, so he never touched it, but still it was getting eaten… you must have known it was me, and when you kept buying more, I could only assume… it was still for me.” Saeran meets my gaze, for what I assume is confirmation. It was true. But Saeyoung hadn't told me; I noticed it for myself. I smile at the thought, which seems to please Saeran, because he continues.  
  
  
“I never really knew happy, on my own. It came so rarely when I was younger that I never truly understood the feeling of it. I never learned how. Without the help of some fucked up substance in my system, I never felt it. But I was starting to learn. I always did love ice cream. And so I was left with that: Clouds made me happy. Ice cream made me happier. But… whenever I saw you, apparently you did, too.”  
  
  
Though my heart does a somersault in my chest at these words, I’m more stuck on something else than those last few words. I narrow my eyes at the familiarity of his story, trying to piece together what exactly he’s said, to figure out why. Maybe I'm overthinking as always. Darn analytical tendencies. But then it hits me.  
  
  
“I – that—” Saeran looks surprised at my sudden stutters that interjected what he was about to say next, and he regards me curiously. I flush and look away, hesitant to continue, but decide to follow through with what I’d realized. “That sounds like psychology to me. Not... n—not that I was trying to subliminally use psychology on you!” I exclaim, realizing what I’d said. My face is definitely melting off my body. Saeran chuckles, though, and the sound is so cheerful despite the conversation, a ringing in my ears that brightens me immediately. I relax.  
  
  
“It’s called a process called conditioning, it’s a method of teaching," I explain, and he looks like he is hanging onto every word. Perhaps he's genuinely interested. "It’s like, the development of a correlation between unrelated things. You knew that ice cream made you happy, right? And you knew that I was the one buying you the ice cream. So, naturally, your body decided to make the associations between those two unrelated things on its own.” Classical conditioning. I knew it well from years of reading it over and over and over again in the books.  
  
  
“Like, your mind indirectly linked me with ice cream. Which explains why you were happy whenever you saw me.” He gapes at me. Maybe I made no sense. This time when I look away, I don’t look back up. “Sorry,” I mutter. Maybe I did make sense. I don't know. But sometimes I forget that people aren't necessarily into sharing my enthusiasm at these kinds of things. I had gotten overexcited.  
  
  
“No! No, don’t be sorry,” he reassures me, and suddenly he’s squeezing my hand. Oh. That's unexpected. "That’s… that’s interesting, I would have never thought about it like that. But it makes sense. But that – that kind of thing doesn’t… go away?” Saeran is suddenly sheepish.  
  
  
“Go away?” I echo, indirectly seeking confirmation.  
  
  
He doesn’t immediately respond. Instead, he’s fixated on our hands, now linked together in an impenetrable grasp. I can feel his pulse bounding through his skin in the tight hold; his hand feels just like Saeyoung’s, if only slightly warmer.  
  
  
“Yes… go away,” he repeats, and his hand begins to shake. He’s… nervous?  
  
  
“What’s wrong?” I ask, turning to face him completely, fully attentive, and now concerned.  
  
  
“Go away, as in…” He takes a deep breath, and another, and another. I become acutely aware of the blatant mood shift, and of my own heart pounding at all my pulse points.  
  
  
“Like… what if… what if you just always made me happy after that?” He swallows, and I don’t blink or move or live. I am simply frozen.  
  
  
“Even a whole year later.”  
  
  
Um. Definitely frozen.  
  
  
My heart’s not beating either. I might absolutely be dead.  
  
  
Where... did this come from? I have no words. I just know that I didn’t expect that. At all. My mind is reeling with a million thoughts a second, urging Saeran to continue, to elaborate, to coax more understanding out of me indirectly, but I can’t manage to even choke out these thoughts. My mind is disconnected from my voice box and they aren’t cooperating. But I needn’t say anything, because surprisingly, he obliges to my silent request.  
  
  
“You make me happy,” he nearly whispers, and if I hadn’t been staring at his lips, waiting agonizing seconds for him to speak, and read them, I wouldn’t have had any idea what he said.  
  
  
His voice becomes a decibel louder and more confident. “I wasn’t happy. Not since I left Mint Eye all those months ago. I didn’t know happy. But I knew you.” A breeze catches his red hair that I know so well, and the way it skins across his forehead looks like it might tickle. The sun is well past the halfway point in the sky now, shining down on him from an angle and from slightly behind where his head is. This effectively forms a russet and golden halo where the sun reflects off his hair.  
  
  
I feel his eyes on me now, and my own flicker up to them, but he’s not looking at me. Instead, he’s staring just to the left of my face, at a point behind me, and his gaze is distant, unfocused. But their twinkle does not escape me. In twenty shades of blue and green they shine, a perfect mesh of the two colors, putting the colors in the sky and the grass and all the Earth's oceans to shame. My breathing hitches, and picks up in double time, in sync with my heartbeat. Can he hear it?  
  
  
I think that time stops, and that I can hear his.  
  
  
It feels like our bodies are being drawn together by an unseen magnetic force. What is happening?  
  
  
I don’t know how many heartbeats pass between us, but it isn’t nearly long to contemplate exactly what is happening. Not before Saeran’s own inhalation catches in his throat.  
  
  
“You saved my life,” he breathes, and I don’t.  
  
  
My mind and body and heart and every part of me betrays me again. My soul betrays me. The fibers of my being splinter into a million tiny threads, irrelevant to the single steel cable keeping me grounded, Saeran’s steely gaze finally on mine.  
  
  
“I should have died that day,” he continues in the same breathy voice, enticing me to lean in to meet him closer, captivated by his impending words. I need to listen. I live to hear him speak in this moment. “I should have bled out on that floor, like I wanted to. But you did everything you could in your damn power to make sure that I didn’t.” His face is close enough to mine that his words feel warm as they swirl and sweep across the surface of my skin.  
  
  
“And I can’t ever forget that.”  
  
  
He’s impossibly close to me now. I’ve never been this close to him before. A blazing heat is currently emanating off his skin. It radiates from him and grazes mine in a way that a thin sheen of sweat skates across my forehead. Or maybe it’s his forehead. The space between us is so minute that particles of perspiration would have no trouble leaping between the microscopic distance.  
  
  
Until he closes the space himself, and now our foreheads are touching, and we're breathing together.  
  
  
_No._ Wait! No!! I can’t do this. I won’t do this to Saeyoung.  
  
  
"Saeran—”  
  
  
He watches me for a moment, his head cocked. He hesitates for a second that feels like a year. Neither of us dare to move an inch. And then he leans forward, painfully slow. Agonizingly slow. The span of time drags out for a lifetime. Maybe even two lifetimes. I freeze for all of it, knowing that I should push him away, that I should stop him somehow, but I'm rooted, immobilized. And then his lips brush against mine, so gently that the action is virtually imperceptible. So delicately that I'm questioning if it even happened, but he's already pulled back. Maybe it didn't happen.  
  
  
Too bad the lingering tingling sensation doesn't lie.  
  
  
“Don’t worry,” he whispers slowly, drawing out both words, like he is gauging his ability to breathe, and it’s even less audible than before. “I’m not ready to love anyone yet. But if I was, I would know who to pick.” His gentle sigh tickles my face, but the frisson that quakes through me is much more prevalent. “But I’m just not ready.” My heart sinks. The sudden disappointment is idiopathic.  
  
  
Saeran’s thumb brushes over my hand one more time, and this is the gentlest, most sensual touch we have ever shared. Instinctively, my head dips downward to follow his motion, but his other hand touches under my chin lightly, and tips my head back up to look at him. We lock eyes, both unwavering. With this shared look, I feel the planet shift on its axis.  
  
  
“But even if I was ready, I would never do that to either of you. Not for a second." Saeran brings my hand to his lips, and holds it there, his eyes drifting closed. He breathes me in, like my skin is a direct lifeline to his oxygen supply. I feel his lips move against me as he mumbles something into my hand. "Not after everything you both have done for me.”  
  
  
And…  
  
  
Time really does stop.  
  
  
Oh.  
  
  
_Fuck._  
  
  
Of two things I am entirely certain.  
  
  
Saeyoung Choi is the love of my life.  
  
  
And I am also in love with his brother.


	17. Boundaries

_Read this as often as you would like until I’m back home with you, which will be very very soon._

 

I’ve done as Saeyoung suggested to me in his note, having read it every day, and sometimes more than once a day. For the 1000th time, I brush my fingers over the letters that his own hands etched onto the now-worn paper. I swear that his scent clings to it. It feels like an eternity ago that Saeran gave it to me, and even longer since Saeyoung wrote it; it certainly didn’t feel like “very very soon”… and he still wasn’t back yet.

 

I miss him so much.

 

…despite recent revelations, I want nothing but to have Saeyoung back with me. With Saeran and me. I need him. We both do.

 

My days consistently pass in a blur, and I focus primarily on two specific tasks: answering emails, and studying. It’s a welcome distraction from recent occurrences. Saeyoung has rerouted the email server from Rika’s former apartment to my computer at the bunker. Even though Jumin bought out that apartment and converted it into RFA’s official headquarters, being there alone is unsettling and eerie to me. Yoosung offered to help me with the emails several times, but I need the distraction.

 

So here I sit, going through the motions for the umpteenth day in a row. My books and notes are splayed out on the desk in front of me, and I study for my upcoming massive exam in between correspondence with potential party guests. Some respond immediately, and others not so much; but it’s unpredictable enough much that I can’t leave this spot during reasonable daylight hours, not to mention all the time I’ve spent slacking off instead of doing my job.

 

_And never forget that I’m always with you…_

 

The maximum effort I’ve put into multitasking is short-lived. I zone out staring at Saeyoung’s note that now holds a place of pride on my desk. From time to time, I glance at it for motivation, or for a smile, or a distraction, but I can’t tear my eyes away from it this particular time.

 

_…Also never forget to not be mad at Saeran…_

 

Saeran…

 

His impromptu visit to Saeyoung – impromptu to me, anyway – was essentially what started the rapid onset of my feelings, directed at the wrong person. No… not the wrong person… just, not the right person. I think.

 

Oh, and a certain lewd dream…

 

Saeran… my god.

 

Ever since our little talk, we coexist naturally. Anything that might have caused awkwardness or tension from before has dissipated. As the number of passing days, and therefore the days of Saeyoung’s extended absence, increases, we both grow more anxious. More impatient. More antsy. Saeran and I spend our nights sitting together, mostly doing nothing, but always saying nothing, all the while knowing all that the other might want to say.

 

There are no secrets now.

 

But still, we maintain boundaries that we have mutually agreed upon. Until the end of all of this, when things finally make sense again, we don’t dare tiptoe over our premeditated margins. We don’t even think about it.

 

Or at least we tell ourselves we don’t.

 

At that moment, Saeran demonstrates his uncanny ability to appear at the most inconvenient times – like now, when my face is scorching at the thought of him – when I sense his presence behind me.

 

“Hey.” As usual, his voice prickles the hair on the back of my neck, and I shiver. “It’s late, and your exam is tomorrow. Are you still working?”

 

I frown. There’s no way that it’s past twilight; we just finished dinner not too long ago. I spin my chair around to face him, to argue this. He wears an arrogant look, crossing his arms, like he’s so disappointed that I’m up so late. Except that it’s not. “Yeah, I’ve been working. But it’s not that la—” A glance at the clock as I speak silences me instantly, because I am absolutely wrong. It’s after 10 PM. Saeran motionlessly watches me, except for his eyebrow that pops up, and a corner of his mouth that twitches. I pout and say nothing.

 

“That’s what I thought,” says Saeran, and I playfully swat at him. He grabs ahold of my wrist before I even come to him. Those darn reflexes of his. “Are you sure you don’t want help with any of this stuff? It can’t be easy for you to do all of it alone.”

 

I groan. He’s right; truthfully, I’m fatigued. “You’re right, it’s not easy. But I also mostly did this to myself, when I decided to put it off. Thanks for the offer, but I think I’ll be able to handle it. Especially once this exam is over and done with.” He’s still holding onto me, and we’re both acutely aware of it.

 

Avoidable physical touch is a minor boundary.

 

…Okay, so some of them are exaggerations, and sometimes we overstep them.

 

Saeran gives a half-shrug, knowing that I can’t be argued with. “I’ll make tea if you want to get ready for bed. Meet me in the living room in five?” It presents as a question, but he doesn’t wait for my answer before releases me, exits the room, and advances toward the kitchen.

 

I release a drawn-out huff, goggling at my study materials that conceal the entire surface of my desk. My enervation, now that I’m not giving my work my undivided attention, is dominant. I comb my hands through my hair and sigh. Years of maintaining my aspirations and weeks and weeks of studying for this entrance exam, which tremendously influences my admission to graduate school, has led me to mere hours before I have to take it.

 

It’s 10 PM… in 14 hours I’ll be sitting in that seat, and in less than 48 hours I’ll have my results. I never imagined that Saeyoung wouldn’t be here for this moment, to share it with me.

 

I hear the kettle whistling in the kitchen, snapping me out of my thoughts, and before I head to the bedroom, I hastily arrange my work space into some semblance of organization, not bothering to clear it entirely. If I know anything about myself, I’ll definitely be in here before the sun is even up, reviewing everything even more.

 

Saeran is already waiting on the couch when I saunter back into the living room, two cups of tea atop the coffee table in front of him. I sink into the couch next to him, and opt for the cup from which the scent of peppermint wafts. I sip it, and unsurprisingly, it’s exactly how I like it. He learned how I love my tea in the same way that I learned he loves ice cream: my excessive repetition of a behavior that he carefully observed.

 

I wasn’t the only one subconsciously paying attention to the other.

 

We bask in each other’s presence as we have routinely done for many nights now; the television is muted, playing some movie or otherwise uninteresting program that we aren’t paying any attention to. There are no sounds except for the occasional slurp from our cups, and our breathing. Our preset limitations scream at me as we sit close enough to feel each other’s body heat, and I scream back that I don’t care. Every finite movement or shift that Saeran makes shocks me to my core, and the sensation is thrilling.

 

“Are you nervous?” His voice comes in a vigilant whisper, like he’s afraid that his sudden piercing of the air with his words will hurt the lingering silence. My heart skips and picks up in double time. Nervous? Am I blushing? What gave me away? I look at him, dumbfounded into silence, and he cocks his head. “About... tomorrow?”

 

Oh. 

 

“No,” I say immediately, which is the utter truth. I’m completely confident, especially after hours and days and weeks of studying.

 

“Good, because you have no reason to be.” Saeran glances at me over the teacup he’s brought to his lips, and though I can’t see his mouth, his eyes tell me he is smiling. Our behavior – sitting here, on a Sunday evening, sipping tea together, is so… _domestic._ We have come such a long way since we met. Saeyoung would be proud.

 

We drift in and out of silence, speaking a fragmented conversation in disjointed questions and answers. This is what we have become so accustomed to.

 

Our peaceful bubble is then penetrated and burst by a familiar robotic voice that I haven’t heard in a long while.

 

 _“Please state Kepler’s second law of planetary motion in Arabic.”_  
  
  
Saeran and I exchanged a troubled look, intensified as muffled shouts coming from outside succeed the robotic voice, followed by what appears to be a vicious pounding against metal.

 

The metal of the bunker door, to be exact. Saeran is already on his feet and in the computer room, thoroughly sweeping over the security cameras. I anxiously watch him over the back of the couch, but I don’t dare move. The shouting and banging continues. It’s after 11. Who is here and why?

 

_“Voice recognition confirmed. Please state, ‘I worship the ground that God Seven Zero Seven pets Elly on’ in Arabic.”_

 

“That’s Saeyoung’s prompt for Zen,” I call out to Saeran with some surprise.

 

Saeran bends over the microphone connected to the security system, and holds Saeyoung’s headphones, which he had left hooked up to the computer, to one ear. “Zen? What is it? Do you know what time it is?” It seems my deduction was correct.

 

Unable to hear Zen’s response, I watch Saeran’s face for confirmation, but it gives nothing away. His face is indifferent as he listens. I then notice a hint of an eye roll crossing Saeran’s features before he presses a couple of buttons in quick succession, granting Zen access remotely.

 

A couple of seconds later, Zen bursts through the main door before it’s even completely swung open on its hinges. He’s nearly breathless. I don’t get up, still leaning over the back of the couch, and Saeran discreetly positions himself between Zen and me. Evidently, he hasn’t forgotten what I told him about what happened at Jumin’s house the night he’d gone to meet Saeyoung. Alongside the boundaries we have set for each other, Saeran has set them for Zen. I’m briefly humored as I recall this, realizing it rationalizes his actions, but Zen’s panting interrupts my amusement.

 

“Babe –” Zen puffs out, and takes two steps toward me, but Saeran jerks his hand up in a second. Internally, I’m rolling around laughing.

 

“She’s not your babe,” says Saeran curtly, and a chuckle escapes my suppression. Zen glowers at him, rolling his eyes before looking back at me.

 

“Babe, I –” He ignores Saeran’s abrasive expression this time. He’s straining so hard to breathe that I’m worried he’ll expire before he can even tell me why he’s here. “I – I just ran here – from my house – to talk to you –”

 

“Um…” I gape at him, bewildered. Is he serious? “There’s… this amazing new technological advancement called a cell phone… not sure if you’ve heard of it…?” Saeran snorts, and Zen flouts him again.

 

“I called – and you didn’t answer,” Zen wheezes. I glance around me, and sure enough my phone is nowhere to be found. I probably left it in the bedroom. “But that’s – not what’s important – see – I had to come tell you – in person – it couldn’t wait – ”

 

“Zen has had another one of his prophetic dreams,” Saeran interjects, apparently already having enough of Zen’s beating around the bush, and struggling to form articulate sentences. It’s Zen’s turn to give him a look of irritation, and Saeran’s turn to pretend it doesn’t exist.

 

“Prophetic dream?” I look back at Zen now, who has made his way over the couch. He clutches it, still panting, trying to get his breathing in gear. “About what?”

 

Zen holds up a finger, the universal signal of “wait until my lungs are no longer on fire,” but Saeran beats him to the punch and speaks again.

 

“Apparently Saeyoung is doomed to some fatal demise,” he reveals to me, and I narrow my eyes when he wiggles an eyebrow upward an infinitesimal amount in obviously amusement. My eyes flicker back to Zen, who seems to have regained his ability to breathe. Kind of.

 

“Just now,” Zen urges hurriedly, “just now. I had the dream, and I woke up and—no stop looking at me like that!” Saeran smirks, despite the malicious expression that Zen shoots at him. “And I woke up and called – but you didn’t answer, so I ran here to tell you. You don’t understand, babe, these dreams don’t lie!!! Don’t you want to know what happened –”

 

“No, she doesn’t,” Saeran answers for me, and though I’m curious, he’s mostly correct.

 

Skeptically I regard Zen, unsure of what to say or think. Saeran’s face is exceptionally apathetic. So far, I feel the same way. Mostly. It’s true that there is minor evidence to support Zen’s “psychic” dreams as valid, but…

 

“No, stop.” A curious sideways glance at Saeran reveals that he isn’t looking at me, but I know he was talking to me. “You can’t seriously be thinking that we should consider what Zen is saying.”

 

Am I that readable? “I-I mean, I—“

 

“No.” He’s not giving me an option. Saeran straightens up from his slouch against the couch, and approaches Zen, almost menacingly. “You know this has not been an easy time for her, and you also know that this extremely important exam she has to take is tomorrow. I’m not really sure what possessed you to think that this conversation should have occurred, or that it couldn’t wait a couple more hours until she had one less thing to worry about, at _least._ ”

 

Zen opens and closes his mouth several times, akin to a fish gulping underwater. He recognizes that Saeran is right, but appears determined to not admit it. “If something bad _does_ happen to Saeyoung, it could be _tonight_ —”

 

“And if something bad does happen to Saeyoung, what would you like us to do about that?” Saeran hisses. Zen gapes at him, and attempts to speak again, but Saeran doesn’t give him the window to do so. “And no, I don’t mean that in the bad way that you’re about to try and scold me for.” Zen promptly shuts his mouth. Their banter is almost as bad as Zen and Jumin’s.

 

“Let’s say that something bad actually was going to happen to Saeyoung. I literally meant, what are we supposed to do about it? We can’t exactly go and find him. His location is a secret. And before you even think about mentioning my trip where I worked alongside him…” Saeran shoots a look at Zen, who once again rendered speechless. I’m thoroughly impressed by Saeran’s analytical skills. It appears I’m not the only one who is easily read. “He moves locations. He moved the second that I left. We aren’t supposed to know where he is. That’s the point. So really, all you’re doing by bringing this information here instilling unnecessary worry for the time being.” Saeran turns to face me. “I’m sorry if that sounded harsh,” says Saeran, a little softer this time. But I shake my head at him.

 

“It’s true,” I whisper, and I get a nod in acknowledgement. “There isn’t anything we can do right now.”

 

Zen’s effectively been reduced to soundless, it seems, because he isn’t even struggling to breathe anymore. His head is bowed, and his face, already flushed from his running, is even redder now.

 

“Sorry babe,” Zen says sheepishly, finding his voice at last. “I—I panicked. I wasn’t thinking.”

 

I offer him a small smile. “You’re fine, Zen. Thank you for thinking of us.” Saeran makes a _pffft_ sound, and I shoot a look at him. “It’s late, Zen,” I say. “Do you want me to drive you home?”

 

“I’ll drive him home,” Saeran cuts in amidst my standing up, and I’m not even fully on my feet yet. “You stay here. I’ll be back soon, but you don’t have to wait up for me.”

 

I press my lips together in a straight line, but I say nothing. Saeran and I have both identified that we cannot argue with the other. “I’ll see you tomorrow, alright?” I tell Zen. Jumin had invited us all to dinner, presumably to celebrate my likely entry into my program, which we’ll know by that time tomorrow.

 

Zen grins at me. “Sure thing, babe.”

 

“Let’s go,” Saeran says, and Zen follows him to the door. He turns around and gives me a small wave. Under normal circumstances he’d probably wrap me in a too-long hug, but it seems that Saeran intimidates him a little bit. I’m still on my feet, and make to move toward them, but Saeran looks back the second I try to take a step. “It’s fine, really. Stay here, I’ll be right back.”

 

I watch them exit, and then I flop backwards into the spot I’d just vacated. Defeated, I let out a breath I’d been holding via a long sigh.

 

I have to urge myself to not overthink what Zen had just proposed. I’d never really believed in the times his so-called visionary dreams really did “predict” things. There was always a way that we attributed it to a coincidence…

 

Or we tried…

 

Really, though. The harsh reality is that Saeyoung had emphasized from the very beginning that this was a dangerous mission. If something hadn’t happened to him yet… I hated considering this, but if it hasn’t happened, it wouldn’t _now_ , not when he claimed to be coming home “very, very soon”… right?

 

…Is that how it worked?

 

Regardless, it’s still a relief that Saeran doesn’t seem concerned about it in the slightest. I’m eternally grateful for our newly pronounced relationship, because it’s given me a lot of necessary stability, especially now. I find that anything he feels or thinks about a certain situation, whatever it might be, I share. He’s wiser and more rational than I am during trying times.

 

Not to mention that he knows more about Saeyoung’s situation more than I do.

 

I decide to not give it a second thought.

 

I trust Saeran.  
  


* * *

  


Someone’s gently shaking me awake. Ugh. I couldn't lift my head if I wanted to, it's too heavy.

 

Someone is still shaking me.

 

_Just five more minutes, Saeyoung…_

 

Wait. …Saeyoung…?

 

...No, Saeyoung isn’t here.

 

The revelation hits me like a truck. Saeyoung…!

 

Hold on. I knew this. He's away for work. But, what's this bad feeling that I can't shake? Didn't... didn’t Zen tell me that he had a dream about something bad happening to Saeyoung? Or did I dream that he told me that?

 

Not... that really happened. I remember him coming to tell me.

 

And... Zen’s dreams don’t lie… right? I am unsure.

 

My uncertainty doesn't go over well with the rest of me. Innumerable wicked thoughts rush into my head. Saeyoung… I can’t let anything bad happen to Saeyoung.

 

What if Zen’s dream comes true? I rack my brains for details on the conversation. He never did tell me what it was about. And so I don’t know... but he wouldn’t have been so rattled if it wasn’t bad... he ran all the way here to tell me. It must be... really bad. 

 

Out of nowhere, my heartbeat becomes wildly erratic, and my eyes fly open in a panic. It’s still dark.

 

And Saeyoung still isn’t here.

 

The person who was shaking me awake is hovering over me... I’m greeted by the right face…

 

…but the wrong eyes.

 

Well… they’re not wrong, but they also aren’t right.

 

“Hey, you fell asleep here on the couch, and –”

 

“Saeran,” I gasp, cutting him off. Immediately his soft expression shifts, and as he recognizes the frenzied look that must be plastered on my face, he quickly seats himself beside me.

 

My pulse is bounding. It’s shaking my entire body.

 

I recognize this sensation, and I know that I need to just… calm down, but it’s easier said than done. I’m overwhelmed by emotion, and it’s unbearable.

 

I miss Saeyoung.

 

The agony comes first, starting like little ripples at my core but growing in strength and size by the second. But the suffocating comes next. The waves of agony sweep over me, catching my breaths in its ebbing flow, effectively deeming my oxygen supply insufficient.

 

I gasp spasmodically. I can’t breathe. I am going to die.

 

“You’re not going to die,” comes a voice from the direction of Saeran. Saeran is the one who somehow knows what I’m thinking all the time. But it’s not Saeran’s voice. It’s warped and underwater. I am underwater. Water is filling my lungs and they aren’t working and I’m dying because I can’t breathe. “Breathe.” I can’t. “In through your nose and out through your mouth.” I can’t. “You can.” My chest is compressed, being squeezed by an unknown force, but the mysterious voice talks me through it.

 

My vision progressively comes back, and Saeran’s outline becomes visible again. He is squeezing my hand.

 

Avoidable physical touch is a minor boundary.

 

But sometimes we overstep.

 

Sometimes we overstep.

 

In an act of careless transgression, I lob myself against Saeran’s chest. He does not resist.

 

Tears pool at my eyes, threatening me with their salty prickliness, bound to spill over at any second. I find comfort against Saeran’s chest. His heart is beating so hard that I can feel it under my cheek.

 

It hurts. Everything hurts. But I need to hold it together. I don’t want to break down in Saeran’s arms.

 

I must not lose my composure.

 

I must not lose my composure.

 

I must not lose my composure.

 

I hate this.

 

The raging waves of agony continue to pulse through me, but it’s fine.

 

……….

 

No it’s not.

 

……….

 

If I just – focus on my breathing—

 

_I hate this so fucking much._

 

I feel a pair of arms tentatively embrace me. See, I’ll be just fine. Saeran is here for me—

 

“Me too,” comes his voice in a shaky, hoarse whisper, and the ominous tsunami of our shared emotions overtakes me.

 

It’s not fine.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, so. It's way, waaay too soon to be making this decision, but I thought about it briefly today and want to run it by y'all.
> 
> When this fic is finished (which isn't going to be for a while, hence why I said it's too soon), I was thinking about writing a spinoff of this story, telling it from Saeran's POV -- or the major parts of it anyway, like the crucial plot developments. Point is, I think I'll be too attached to it by the finale that I won't want to say goodbye yet. What do you guys think???
> 
> Anyway, for the record, my own angst is k i l l i n g me but it's so essential to the plot that I have no choice. I am sorry. ;_;
> 
> Wait... can I be sorry if I'm the one who planned it this way?


	18. Silent

I'm too warm. It's uncomfortable.

 

I lay with my eyes still squeezed shut, reveling in every last second of sleep I can manage before I have to get up.

 

I take in the details in my present, observant state. The light shining through my eyelids is bright, so it's definitely morning. No convincing myself that I have extra time for sleep today.

 

And it's exam day. It starts at 10 AM sharp. I should get up sooner rather than later so I can squeeze in a little more studying before I have to leave.

 

But it's still too warm...

 

I let out a deep sigh, and suddenly there's the tiniest movement beneath my arm. Startled, my eyes fly open. I'm nestled in the crook between someone and... the back of the couch? I must have dozed off here.

 

Still disoriented from my half-awake state, I make out the shape of Saeyoung, and do a double take. Saeyoung!? How--

 

Oh. This man's face is slightly thinner, his hair is a little shorter, and his breaths are gentle and rhythmic; very unlike the quaking snores that shake my whole body when I sleep next to Saeyoung.

 

Saeran is asleep under my left arm. His breaths are so uniform and delicate that I hadn't even noticed him before. I marvel at his peaceful state for a moment before I make all the necessary connections in my brain. I'm acutely aware that my eyes are extremely heavy, and my body aches. I shiver a little, now that I'm somewhat separated from Saeran's sleeping form. I connect the dots, and recall what ensued immediately before Saeran and I apparently fell asleep together on the couch.

 

A lot of comforting, and a lot more tears.

 

And no words. We didn’t need them. Each other was what we needed the most.

 

I don't draw back entirely, instead smiling to myself about how content Saeran is in his sleeping form. I've never seen him this vulnerable before. His features are visibly relaxed, rather than the tense, anxious set that they generally arrange themselves in during waking hours. And it's true that, save for the fine details that I am only aware of because I've studied Saeyoung's face for hours, they look exactly alike.

 

It's unusual that I gaze at this figure, that could be either Saeyoung or Saeran if I omit the certain specifics, and find myself happy no matter how I look at it.

 

Though I've adjusted myself so I'm more upright, our legs remain intertwined, and our positioning is like two people who knew each other well enough to identify what is the most comfortable for both parties.

 

I frown. Both of these thoughts are unsettling enough for me to realize it. Even though we lay together in this suggestive position, I'd never cheat on Saeyoung. With a pang, I realize I never actually considered how he might take all of these new findings in when he finds out... yes, when, because he needs to know.

 

My thoughts first wander to what Saeyoung might say if he found us like this. His brother, curled up on the couch next to me, and my body practically molded against his.

 

In truth, I know just how he'd react. Saeyoung would point fingers at us, and call us traitors for sure, feigning surprise and betrayal. Ever the drama queen. There might even be fake tears. I smile at the thought. And then he would catapult himself onto the both of us.

 

My relationship with Saeyoung is built on trust and leaves no room for any threats by any outside means. Saeyoung would definitely approve of mine and Saeran's interactions to comfort one another in this trying time.

 

But I can't gauge his opinion on the actual present circumstances, because I don't know.

 

I do know that I'll have to tell him, though. It's not a question.

 

I admire Saeran for two more precious minutes before I force myself to peel away from the couch to get ready for the day. I do this carefully so as not to wake him. It isn't until I'm separated from him completely that I squint at the clock on the wall to determine my allotted time for the morning.

 

The revelation jolts through me like an electric shock. What the...

 

9:30 AM!?  


* * *

  
I have no idea how I'd overslept by so much, but the time for reprimanding myself is not right now. My knuckles are a ghostly white with my strangulatory grip on the steering wheel as I speed at ten times over the speed limit through the streets.

 

If there's any time to be pulled over by the police, now is the time. Maybe I'd get a police escort to campus.

 

It's 9:56 when I turn, slamming on the brakes to drop my speed to a fraction of what it was before, into the parking lot. I screech to a halt at the first place I can even slightly squeeze Saeyoung's car. It's not even a parking spot. I can worry about that later. He wouldn't be happy, knowing the treatment I've given his precious baby car...

 

I can worry about that later.

 

Bag... keys... phone...

 

I have everything, and dash from the car to the entrance of where I need to be.

 

"Wait--wait!!" I yell out, running full speed as the ushers monitoring the entrance are about to shut the doors, cutting off entry to the building. They narrow their eyes and frown at me, but I give them a half-hearted grin before easily sidling between the closing doors.

 

I made it.

 

There's a table just outside the room where the exam will take place, where I'm supposed to sign in. As I approach it, my phone starts ringing, at full volume, echoing through the quiet hall in which I stand right now. Flushed, I see Saeran’s name flashing across the screen. The woman sitting at the table that I’m approaching is wearing too much lipstick and she looks thoroughly displeased, so I know that answering it is a bad idea. I reluctantly reject the call, and I switch the phone to silent mode.

 

"Do you know what time it is?" She hisses, and I mutter an apology. As I bend over the table to write my name, my phone goes off again. _Did I not just silence this thing?!_ It must be Saeran desperately trying to catch me before the exam, wondering where I am, if I arrived okay, and why I didn’t inform him of my departure, considering he had offered to drive me here. I get a disapproving stare as I sheepishly grin and pull my phone out, catching a glimpse of the screen as I reject the call again. An unknown number appears on the screen this time.

 

Oh. Maybe Saeran thinks that I’m mad at him for the night before, for us falling asleep together, for overstepping… and that I’m ignoring his calls…

 

As if calling from an unknown number would make me answer if that was my motive. Oh, Saeran.

 

I’m mentally debating with myself about attempting to send him a quick reassuring text message, but the sour woman before me coughs animatedly. Hurriedly I check that my phone really is in silent mode before depositing it back in my bag. It is; this phone gives me nothing but problems, I swear… Saeyoung has like 8 phones, maybe I could dig one of those up when I get home…

 

“AHEM.”

 

I gape at the woman, whose too-bright red lips are pursed. “Did you just… speak the sound of you clearing your throat…?"

 

She’s risen from her seat now, and towers over me by about half a head, but doesn’t retort. Instead, she ushers me into the auditorium, where hundreds of students are already seated, ready to start. Every single eye is on me. This irks me; as if every one of these people hadn’t been late to something at some point in their life… albeit this is one of the most important times of our lives, but I shake that thought from my head and wave at the direction of my audience. Several people snicker, but I ignore them, and turn to the proctor at the front of the hall.

 

He looks at me, his mouth set in a tight line. There is an assembly line of other proctors who will monitor the exam hall standing behind him, waiting. So this guy is the big guns. This university really cracks down and does everything in its power to eliminate any form of cheating. Even if it means situating someone every ten feet to watch over us.

 

The proctor clears his throat, and I scowl at him. He’s holding out his hand for my bag, clicking his tongue impatiently. I’m about to hand it over when my phone goes off for a third time, but it resonates loudly in the acoustics of this otherwise quiet hall. _You have got to be kidding me._ I quickly pull it out to shut it the hell up. The stifled chortles from my peers accompany the sound in a mocking, ridiculing symphony. I grit my teeth and make a mental note to get rid of the stupid thing the second that this exam is over. The proctors have all narrowed their eyes at me in a synchronous manner.

 

"Hand it over," says the proctor, who is still holding his hand in midair, and his mouth still in that tight line.

 

Defeated, I stretch my arm to hand it over, and as it crosses the gap between our hands, I catch sight of the missed call notification. It’s the same unknown number as before. At least, I think it’s the same. Or was that 2 a 5 before? And that 1, a 7? I have no idea.

 

But now the phone is off. The proctor has done this, with a sneer. "Take your seat," he commands, nodding toward it, leaving no indication that I have the slightest of choices. And so I do.

 

I settle into the last available seat, on the aisle, about halfway back in the hall. Already assembled before me is the answer sheet for my exam, two pencils, a calculator, and scrap paper. I zone out as one of the proctors drones on about the rules of the exam as if I haven’t heard them a million times.

 

My mind wanders back to the night before with Saeran. There isn’t a lot to recall, really, but feeling his body underneath mine is not a sensation easily forgotten.

 

Saeran…

 

He’s hurting too. That much is obvious. We both miss Saeyoung. Things are just not the same without him around.

 

 _Saeyoung_ …

 

I love him more than anything in the world, but I also can’t ignore the shameless flutters in my stomach at the thought of his twin brother. How did I let my feelings get to this point?

 

I don’t know why I question it when I already know the answer.

 

Saeran is so easy to love. I wonder if he thinks I’m easy to love. He _had_ said that if he was ready to love, he’d know who to pick…

 

But I… never meant to fall _in love_ with him.

 

…Am I in love with him? Could it be… a phase?

 

Ugh. I don’t know.

 

It’s not disloyal to Saeyoung if I don’t… act on it, right? It’s not really cheating? Especially if I 100% plan to tell him. No way would I ever keep this from him. Feelings aren’t cheating… I think.

 

Well, it doesn’t matter anyway. I intend on telling Saeyoung everything when he’s back and well.

 

The proctor seems to be finishing up his pre-exam soliloquy. I glance up, and he is staring right at me. I flush.

 

"You may not leave the exam hall at any time. You have four hours. Begin!"  
.  


* * *

  
The clock, the only sound in the room aside from scribbling pencils, is deafening to my ears as I bend over my exam, hastily filling in the bubbles. _102\. A. 103, D. 104, A._ My chin in my hand, eyes barely skimming the questions before I answer them. This is much easier than I anticipated, and I’m growing impatient with it. I just want to be over and done with.

 

_107, A. 108, C. 109, C._

 

Saeyoung always did tell me that I studied _too_ much. He wasn’t the first to tell me that, but I personally believed there was no such thing. But maybe I had over-studied for this. I’m breezing through it, although I’m not sure if I should attribute that to my studying, or if it was just that easy. I wonder if it is for everyone else. Curiously I glance up for a moment, and I meet the wide-eyed gaze of the person sitting next to me, who turns bright red and looks away immediately, back down at their own test. The proctor standing nearby our row is not looking at us. _Cheat all you want,_ I think. _It’s just going to screw you over in the long run._

 

With a sigh, I flip to the back page of the exam. 200 questions. I’m just over halfway done. Whoever made this exam is out to get me, that was for sure. _112, A. 113, B. 114…_

 

I wish that Saeyoung would be waiting with open arms outside this exam hall when I finish, as I always anticipated. But he won’t be…

 

What I’d give to even be to be able to pick up the phone and call him. I miss my best friend.

 

Pick up the phone…

 

My pencil falls to the desk with a clatter just as I was lowering it to mark another answer. _Holy shit._

 

…Originally I’d thought that Saeran tried calling me from an unknown number because he thought that I was mad at him. But… would Saeran really think that…?

 

Or could it have been someone else trying to call me…

 

Someone who did not know the definite time of my exam…

 

Someone who might be able to take my phone off silent remotely so I’d hear it no matter what I was doing…

 

It was someone else who called, someone else, someone else…

 

But…

 

What if it wasn’t?

 

Fortunately, I don’t have time to dwell on these thoughts for long.

 

The door to the classroom suddenly opens noisily. Initially I’m uninterested, but at the glimpse of a dark suit, I do a double-take. _Is that… one of Jumin’s bodyguards?_ Long, lean, and uptight looking, I can’t be certain. I might have seen them before? But I might not have.

 

Regardless, I watch his swift movements toward Head Honcho sitting at the front, bending to mutter something in his ear, but he’s too far away for me to make out any meaningful, decipherable words, and he is angled somewhat away from me, so I can’t read his lips. My heart skips a beat when, I swear, the eyes of the proctor flicker over me for a brief moment. I flush, and effectively diverted from my previous thoughts, I continue with my mindless answers – _114, A. 115, D. 116, D._ – but a sneaked glance through my eyelashes reveals the proctor shaking his head sternly to whatever the man was saying to him. I am not the only person whose attention has been attracted; several other students are watching over this exchange curiously as well.

 

The suit-clad man whips out a phone and types furiously into it. I purse my lips and tap the pencil eraser against them, and realize with frustration that in my distracted state, I answered question 116 incorrectly. The answer is actually C. I have just started to erase it when the classroom door flies aggressively open again. And who but Jumin Han himself briskly enters, an air of determination about him, as he approaches the pair at the head of the room.

 

My whole body floods with heat. _Oh no._ I force my eyes back down, squeezing them shut, struggling to listen, urging one sense to improve with the loss of another. But Jumin speaks in his regular authoritative, quick, hushed tone, and my effort is futile.

 

I open my eyes and look at my exam again. What was the answer to 116 again? D, right? Flustered, I try to re-gauge the appropriate response from the four options given, but they all blur together into one. The warm sensation I felt earlier transitions into one of discomfort, then unease, then mild panic. _Damn you, Jumin, for interrupting one of the most important exams of my life._ It has been impending for months now. What are the odds? But I immediately rescind this thought when I consider the reasons why he might be here. Something must be very, very wrong.

 

I meet Jumin’s steely grey gaze from across the room, and while it gives nothing away, a lump rises in my throat. Saeyoung. It has to be Saeyoung.

 

What has happened to him?

 

In my peripheral, I see the proctor notice that Jumin and I are amidst an unwavering staring contest, my exam long forgotten underneath my shaky hands. I readjust my focus to him, and notice that his eyes have clouded over to concern from his indifference earlier. He makes a “come here” gesture with a single finger.

 

I scramble to my feet, sweeping everything from the desk in front of me in one swift motion, and hurriedly rush to the front of the room. I feel the shift of every eye in the room from staring at what happened at the front of the room, to me. Once in front of the proctor, my back shielding the view from everyone behind me, he speaks.

 

“There appears to be an emergency,” he tells me in an almost inaudible voice, and my eyes shoot back to Jumin, but he’s busy collecting my bag.

 

In an unsteady voice, I look back at the proctor. “What does this mean? What do I do? My exam—“

 

The proctor looks at the half-finished exam in my nervous, clammy grasp, and chews on his bottom lip, evidently weighing what options I may have. I hear nothing but my heart pounding in my ears as I await his response in the drawn-out silence, paired with desperate anticipation.

 

“Take care of what you need to take care of,” he says at last, and holds out a hand. “We will have to discuss this later.”

 

I waste no time in handing over my exam, and thank him with a silent nod. My distressed and panicked expression excuses me from my lack of manners. I feel eyes still on me like daggers as I hurry to Jumin’s side, and slip my hand through the arm he offers me. He leads me into the hallway, but I feel dazed. My whole body is numb, and my legs are failing to hold my weight.

 

The bodyguard hurries off, presumably to fetch Driver Kim and subsequently the car that will lead me to whatever demise I’m about to face. I look at Jumin, who isn’t looking at me. He was so assertive in the exam hall, and now he’s the the exact opposite.

 

“Jumin, what happened?” I choke out, after a minute too long of my pleading look at him to no response. He says nothing.

 

“Jumin,” I say a little more fiercely, with more edge to my voice. “Jumin, look at me. Is it Saeyoung?” Finally he reciprocates my gaze, but his expression neither confirms nor denies.

 

“Driver Kim will arrive shortly with the car,” is all he says. This is not the confirmation I was looking for. I open my mouth to scorn him, and he opens his mouth, perhaps to spew more nonsense, but we’re both interrupted by his phone suddenly ringing. “Excuse me,” he mutters, and heads down the hallway in which we stand to take the call that is somehow more important than this conversation with me.

 

OH. My phone. I withdraw it from my bag, and shakily, I turn it on. There are probably answers on here. It takes a year to power on. And then, finally, my screen glows to life.

 

I see the missed call from Saeran, but there are no messages from him. Then I see the seven other missed calls that must have occurred once the phone was turned off.

 

And a voicemail.

 

With fumbling, clumsy fingers, I access the voicemail. It's either Saeran, or...

 

I hold the phone to my ear.

 

“Hi baby,” comes Saeyoung’s sweet, sweet voice, and it takes every ounce of energy in my body and in this building and on the planet to not drop the phone in utter surprise.

 

I can feel the heat of his cheeky smile as he speaks, even through the phone, from miles and miles away, several hours after his original phone call. He lets out a breathy sigh, the kind where his eyes would flutter shut, where he inhales dramatically beforehand.

 

“Hi baby,” he repeats, and the sound is not unlike angels singing in a beautiful harmony. My entire body is lightly vibrating, both from the force of my bounding pulse, and the tears that I feel are imminent. “I love you so much.”

 

“I love you too,” I whisper back, and pray to the higher powers that he can hear me. I was so close to being able to answer this phone call. So fucking close.

 

I love you, Saeyoung Choi.

 

“I love you so much,” Saeyoung’s voice continues, and when my lips part to release an exhale, briny tears find their way to the tip of my tongue. “I love you more than words will ever be able to explain. I don’t have a lot of time, sweetheart. I wanted to tell you that, though. And—“ Saeyoung’s voice comes to a halt, almost as though he choked on his words. Another sound quickly follows, and it sounds like a grimace of pain, but he retaliates quickly. He doesn’t want me to hear it, whatever it is. Following the bubbling fury in me at whoever or whatever has caused him pain, I feel all the blood drain from every part of my body. Suddenly I’m lifeless.

 

“This was a setup. I’m sorry. I’m so, so sorry.” This revelation is my worst fear realized. His words slice through me like a thousand knives, and with a bated breath, I await his next words. They come in a struggle, a choke. “Their intentions - they – they were after us all along. It didn't matter what I did. I was stupid and I’m sorry.”

 

My formerly lifeless, weak form is reborn with blind rage. I don't understand what he means, I still don’t know what this job was, or is, or what is happening, but I will _break_ whoever thought they would hurt the ground that Saeyoung treads upon, the air that he breathed last week. I am seething. I will fucking kill someone.

 

“But I’m coming home, baby,” breathes Saeyoung’s voice in a softer, gentler tone, that subdues my body’s cells that formerly pulsed with infuriation. Now, I’m floating on his voice.

 

“I’m coming home to you and Saeran if I die doing it. But.” He stops talking, and starts laughing instead. But it’s just a sound. It doesn’t resonate from within his chest, echoing from his lungs all the way outwards as Saeyoung’s laughs do. It isn’t real. “I’m sorry, I just. It’s funny, to me, because honestly, if I haven’t died yet…” Another breathy, forced chuckle, but weaker this time. Leave it to Saeyoung to laugh in the face of a near-death experience.

 

“I love you so much baby. I… I want to spend every second of my life showing you just how much I do. And it still wouldn’t be enough time. Not nearly enough.” He doesn’t try to hide his suppressed sobs now. I’m shaking like a leaf.

 

“But, listen, there is something I should have told you before I left… but I couldn’t. I was afraid of what you might think… what you might say…” His laugh is half-hearted now, almost hopeless, and my heart sinks at the sad sound of it. He should never be afraid to tell me anything, ever…

 

The sharp cut of static in my ear startles me, though Saeyoung’s voice continues on. “I -- take -- on, and -- you -- it’s not -- as -- back -- mine." I struggle to make out his words, but the phone has been overtaken by the static, and it’s impossible. “—love you," he says, in the exact same breathy voice he had started the voicemail with, and the first time he ever told me. “I love—"

 

_BANG!_

 

This time, I do drop the phone, but now it’s in surprise and horror. The sound is so abrupt and loud that I actually jerk my head around the empty hallway in which I stand, certain that it came from within twenty feet of me.

 

But it didn’t.

 

It was through the phone.

 

Realization knocks the wind out of me. I fall to my knees, scrambling to pick my phone up. No! No!!!!!

 

That couldn’t have been— there was no way— _NO!_

 

I finally grasp my phone with damp hands and shove it to my ear desperately, tears already streaming down my cheeks.

 

I don’t care that I’m sobbing on the floor in the hallway of my hopefully future college. Fluids pour down my face from my eyes and nose, and I don’t give a damn. I’m no longer shaking like a leaf, I’m quaking like the entire forest amidst the world’s most powerful, ruthless hurricane, the kind that knocks out power for a week and destroys everything in its path like it’s made of paper.

 

I am terrified, straining to make out a sound, any sound, _any sound_ on the line. I don’t breathe for the fear that I might miss it, and I don’t hear anything at all except a haunting silence. I pull the phone away from my ear to see if the voicemail ended and then, it was there, echoing through the speaker loudly enough that I’d hear it even if my phone was at home and I still stood here. Three gunshots. Three… _more…_ gunshots. And then the line goes dead, and everything is silent.


	19. Beep

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is a little short -- I originally planned to post it simultaneously with the last one, but decided at the last minute to touch up on a few things. Thank you for reading!
> 
> I also want to thank everyone who left comments on the last chapter. I didn't get the chance to reply to each of you personally as I usually do, but as always, I appreciate you all and everything you have to say. It fuels me to keep writing, seriously. Especially when I'm overwhelmed by real life and other things and it's hard to do so. I'm so happy that so many of you love this story as much as I love writing it and living it. Thank you so much. Xoxoxo

_Riiiiiing. Riiiiiing._

 

_Pick up, pick up, pick up…_

 

”Sorry I missed your call. Please leave a message after the beep…”

 

_Fuck. Her voice._

 

Beep!

 

“Damn it!” _Ouch. Moving hurts. Yeah, let’s not do that._

 

_Hmm… what’s this? Her phone is on silent… so… maybe she just didn’t hear my call…?_

 

_This is easily remediated._

 

Click. Click.

 

_If I just… go through here, maybe I can access the – yes! And this, here…_

 

Click. Click.

 

_I should be able to…_

 

“Aha. Yes!” _Now to try again..._

 

_Riiiiiing. Riiiiiing._

 

_C’mon…_

 

”Sorry I missed your call. Please leave a message after the beep." Beep!

 

“What the fuck, babe…” _Andddddd, her phone is on silent again. Why does keep… well, that doesn’t matter. Just – again –_

 

_Riiiiiing. Riiiiiing._

 

”Sorry I missed your call. Please leave a message after the beep." Beep!

 

“Fuck!” _Agh, ow, okay, note to self… do NOT bang fists on desk. Ouch._

 

_One more time…_

 

 _Riiii—_ "Sorry I missed your call. Please leave a message…”

 

_Wha…? Now her phone is off… ___

 

“…after the beep." Beep!

 

 _Riiii—_ "Sorry I missed your call. Please leave a message--” 

 

 _Riiii—_ "Sorry I missed your call. Please leave a message--”

 

 _Riiii—_ "Sorry I missed your call. Please leave a message--”

 

 _Riiii—_ "Sorry I missed your call. Please leave a message--”

 

_I have no choice._

 

“Hi baby.” Breathe.

 

“Hi baby. I love you so much.” _So much that it hurts, you have no idea._

 

_Literally._

 

“I love you so much. I love you more than words will ever be able to explain. I don’t have a lot of time, sweetheart. I wanted to tell you that, though. And— “ _Do not fucking cry._ “This was a setup. I’m sorry. I’m so, so sorry. Their intentions – they – they were after us all along. It didn't matter what I did. I was stupid and I’m sorry.”

 

Breathe.

 

“But I’m coming home, baby. I’m coming home to you and Saeran if I die doing it. But.” _Oh, the irony._ “I’m sorry, I just. It’s funny, to me, because honestly, if I haven’t died yet…” Heh.

 

“I love you so much baby. I… I want to spend every second of my life showing you just how much I do. And it still wouldn’t be enough time. Not nearly enough.” _Stop fucking crying. Stop it right now. You’re supposed to be strong for her._

 

_Breathe._

 

_Oh... There is just... one other thing…_

 

_I might not survive this._

 

_It’s now or never._

 

“But, listen, there is something I should have told you before I left… but I couldn’t. I was afraid of what you might think… what you might say…” _Heheheh…_

 

_Eh? What’s that static?_

 

_…Oh. It has to be remote interference. Someone is attempting to cut off the call._

 

_Hell fucking no._

 

“F—” _No, idiot. Cover the receiver first._

 

“Feel free to see your way out of this very personal conversation.”

 

The feeling of cold metal against a clammy forehead is hard to ignore.

 

 _Oh please._ “And get your fucking gun away from my head.”

 

_Oh, right. The voicemail._

 

_...Just spit it out, Saeyoung._

 

“I am taking you to the space station, and I am making you mine. It’s not a question. As soon as I get back… you’re officially all mine. I love you. I love—”

 

Click.

 

“What did I just say? Get your fucking gun away from—”

 

_BANG!_

 

The phone clatters to the floor.

 

_BANG! BANG! BANG!_

 

……….

 

“Message limit reached." Beep!

  


* * *

  


_Beep._

 

Everything is too much. There are sounds that are too familiar: monitors, bed alarms, patient call bells.

 

Everything beeps in a hospital.

 

_Beep._

 

I don't know how I got here. I think Jumin had to drag me kicking and screaming from a floor somewhere, but now I am virtually lifeless.

 

Why am I here?

 

_Beep._

 

My shoes scrape against the vinyl flooring, which is too shiny. Jumin is on one side of me, Zen is on the other.

 

They have to drag me again. 

 

_Beep._

 

Jaehee's heels click and clack behind us as she briskly follows. This woman is too on top of everything.

 

Well, except for one thing.

 

_Beep._

 

I hear Yoosung running to catch up to us, and he's panting heavily. The poor thing is breathless.

 

Me too, Yoosung.

 

_Beep._

 

The overstimulation resonates through me. Or what remains of me.

 

I am a too-empty outer shell.

 

_Beep._

 

I know the feel of hospitals too well. I have spent a significant span of four university years in hospitals.

 

But never like this.

 

_Beep._

 

The sterility that is usually a comfort to me in my line of work and education is too clean. Everything is too white: the walls, the floors, the uniforms of the workers bustling about. They move too quickly. Their voices are too loud.

 

Every sound is.

 

_Beep._

 

The grasps on either side of me are suddenly too tight, and I'm being supported on my feet, because my legs aren't working. Not one part of me is.

 

We have stopped walking.

 

_Beep._

 

There is a door in front of us. It looks like every other door in this place; the color is too chestnut. I observe discrepancies in the design, likely carried over from the tree that was cut down to produce this particular door. We are too cruel to nature.

 

And life is too cruel to us.

 

_Beep._

 

The doctor that approaches us is too tall. When he speaks, I don't listen. His voice is too raspy, too hoarse. He must be too tired, from working too long.

 

He leaves too soon, but I watch him go.

 

_Beep._

 

We're waiting for something. The seconds are too long.

 

Too creakily, the door before us opens.

 

_Beep._

 

A nurse is exiting the room. Her features are too kind. She's opened the curtains, or someone else has, and sunlight beams through the wide window. It's too bright.

 

Or maybe my world is too dark.

 

_Beep._

 

Saeran is inside of the room, suddenly within my line of sight. He's too eager to see me. He's trying too hard to make eye contact.

 

I look right past him.

 

_Beep._

 

I know too well how to make up a hospital bed; it's one of the first things they teach you in school. But these perfectly folded corners in front of me are too immaculate.

 

And the bed is too empty.

 

_Beep._

 

Everything beeps in a hospital.

 

But there's nothing in this room to make a sound.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Although it may seem like it, I swear the preface was not to butter you guys up and soften you into extra vulnerability prior to this chapter. I meant every single word with the utmost sincerity!! Don't hate me ;_;


	20. Darkness

I don’t know where I am. But wherever it is, it feels like I’m floating.

 

Except when I’m not.

 

Ripping. Burning. Twisting. Crippling. Torturous. Crimson red.

 

This is my current reality.

 

And Saeyoung is dead here.

 

He’s dead, and I’m dying.

 

Reality is red, and non-reality is black.

 

I disconnect into the darkness of non-reality.

 

* * *

  
There are voices in the background, and they’re saying something. Something… something… I can’t make anything out.

 

They are probably talking about Saeyoung and how he is dead.

 

I struggle to understand something, anything, but they are high in the clouds, they are underwater, they are on the other side of the world. Indistinguishable. Incomprehensible.

 

But I don’t mind.

 

I don’t need to hear about how dead Saeyoung is.

 

I don’t need this reality.

 

 _Darkness, take me,_ I silently plead with myself.

 

And it does.

 

* * *

  
I have no strength left. I don’t have the strength to listen to the voices in the background anymore. I don’t have the strength to hear them. I don’t have the strength to care.

 

I don’t have the strength to mark time, counting my frantic heartbeat or my shallow, almost nonexistent breaths.

 

I don’t have the strength to lay here unmoving while the flaming pain rips through me, charring me, setting me aflame from the inside out.

 

I don’t have the strength to force my heavy eyelids apart. Maybe it’s possible, maybe it’s impossible.

 

Or maybe this strength exists, and maybe I possess it, but maybe I just don’t want to fight anymore.

 

Saeyoung is dead.

 

I don’t want to fight anymore.

 

I fade into the darkness once again.

 

* * *

  
There’s a new sensation. It’s familiar, but unfelt for a very long time. It’s the slightest wisp of cool air, swirling into the room. From somewhere. Somehow. I think a door has opened.

 

In a past life, I knew the whirring of the door’s mechanics. It’s a hospital door. Maybe I’m in the hospital.

 

In a past life, I could feel the coolness brushing against my skin, leaving goosebumps in its wake.

 

That was in a past life… a past life where Saeyoung was alive.

 

But Saeyoung is dead.

 

I let the darkness swallow me into its abyss.

 

* * *

  
I think I hear a sniffle.

 

Hearing is the last sense to go when you die. Am I dying?

 

I mentally make a correlation between the sniffle, and a jarring pain, which jabs through me and knocks what little air is left out of me. Which isn’t much, but the source of this painful sound is worth everything I have left.

 

I don’t know why.

 

Now there’s a pressure on one of my hands. And it’s warm.

 

This hand I do know. It’s…

 

…warm. I know warm.

 

Heat is blistering through me in waves of agony. I am very familiar with warmth.

 

But this warmth… this is milder. Almost comforting. It floods through me, coursing through my veins. It leaves relief in its wake. It supplies my blood with the oxygen I need to actually breathe properly. The agony subsides, if only temporarily.

 

I don’t know why any of this could be. Only Saeyoung makes me feel this way.

 

And Saeyoung is dead.

 

My world is nothing but darkness without him; I succumb to it.

 

* * *

  
_Beep._

 

_Beep._

 

_Beep._

 

What is that beeping?

 

_Beep._

 

My eyelids are no longer impossibly weighted down.

 

I think… I can open them.

 

…I think.

 

_Beep._

 

Should I try?

 

_Beep._

 

Damn it.

 

_Beep._

 

Everything beeps in a hospital.

 

_Beep._

 

I must be in the hospital.

 

_Beep._

 

I open my eyes.

* * *

  
_Beep. Beep. Beep._

 

I look to my left, squinting through the blinding brightness of the room, toward the source of the obnoxious, repetitive sound. It’s an IV pump, whining because the bag hanging from the stand is empty. A downwards glimpse of my hand reveals that the IV line is attached to me.

 

There’s no mistaking that I’m definitely in the hospital. Everything is so clinical, so white. I’m in a bed that’s not mine, in clothes that don’t belong to me. I lift my arms, and though my muscles groan in response to the movements, they seem to function just fine. I do the same with my legs, but this warrants a dull, probing ache in a spot that suggests that there’s a catheter in place; this is confirmed with a glance over the edge of the bed, where, sure enough, the bag hangs. I glance back up at the IV bag. It’s just regular saline. The signs all point to the same conclusion: that I am simply dehydrated.

 

It doesn’t make sense to me. There doesn’t appear to be anything else wrong with me. Why am I hospitalized because of dehydration? Why am I even dehydrated?

 

I recall the floating feeling from before, and realize that it’s due to the obscene amount of pillows that I lay atop, stacked all around me, supporting me from every angle. It feels like a bed of clouds, like I am… floating.

 

It’s content for a moment, if nothing else.

 

Because I don’t stay afloat for long; I start to sink.

 

Because with a pang – no, like an asteroid crashing into Earth – the pain overtakes me, suffocates me, akin to before but now I’m awake to feel it. I am perpetually sinking.

 

Because Saeyoung is dead.

 

Almost instantaneously, one of the monitors at my bedside starts beeping wildly. I don’t realize that it’s also connected to me, and that it goes off perfectly in sync with my erratic heartrate.

 

I start to drown in the agony before I even realize that they are crashing over me, and I’m kicking with obscene force against the pressure before it pulls me under. But why? Why am I fighting?

 

Saeyoung is dead.

 

There’s chaos suddenly, first outside the door, and then inside the door, and now at my bedside. Hands of all temperatures firmly grab at me, my arms, my legs… holding me down…?

 

I did not realize I had been thrashing about.

 

“Let go of me,” I snarl at the figures pinning me to the bed, and I struggle against them, but their grips only tighten. “Let go of me!!” I screech, shocking even myself at my own audacity. There’s hesitation, but still unwavering grasps. I writhe and twist beneath their steady holds, screaming in resistance, and I can vaguely make out the doctor telling the nurse to push one dose of –

 

“Do not put any fucking drugs in my body!” I cry out, and I’m livid at the tears streaming from my eyes as I shout. I'm livid at myself for being so angry, for being so emotional, for Saeyoung being so dead.

 

Saeyoung is dead. I don’t want any drugs. I don’t need any. Nothing can diminish this pain. Nothing will ever cure it.

 

The tears persist, and they are unyielding. I am crippled by the agony, clawing at my heart and my soul and every cell that sustains me dissolves into dust. I am slowly becoming nothing. Saeyoung was the anchor that held me to this earth, and without him, I'm detached, flying, soaring far away from this place.

 

My throat grows increasingly more hoarse as I wail and whine Saeyoung's name, Saeyoung's name -- if I cry it out enough, he'll be here, he'll appear, he fucking _promised_ \--

 

And then suddenly, the warm hands I recall from before are against my cheek, and in my hair, stroking lightly, my tears disappearing in their wake. The effect is immediate: my heart rate slows to a normal rhythm, and my limbs relax. But why? I don't want to be calm. Saeyoung is dead.

 

“Saeyoung is dead,” I choke out to this person, so they know. Everyone needs to know that my world has crumbled and combusted into a lifeless pile of ashes and nothingness. My voice and my heart crack a little more with every syllable.

 

Then a soft sound hushes me.

 

It's a voice that doesn't say anything, it just makes a gentle "shhhhh" sound intermittently between me catching my breaths in painful, unsuccessful gasps. But this voice helps me breathe. This voice talks me through inhalation. Through exhalation. I, by some miracle, against all of my best wishes, am breathing. This voice drags me back down to earth. This voice tells me that I belong here, and almost convinces me that I want to be.

 

And the voice helps me rationalize. These doctors and nurses are only trying to help. It becomes quickly apparent to me that they think I'm having a psychotic break, and are acting accordingly.

 

But I am having a psychotic break. Saeyoung is dead. Time is still passing and it doesn't make sense. My heart is still beating and it doesn't make sense. There are people going about their daily lives as if the only thing that matters in the universe did not cease to exist; the world doesn't make sense, so of course my mind doesn't make sense. Nothing makes sense. Nothing will ever make sense again.

 

But at least I am calm. The voice has calmed me. One by one, the other pairs of hands release me, but the one in my hair does not. The gentle caressing persists until I melt into the touch of a hazy red figure that my bleary eyes can hardly make out. I sink through the ground that I've landed on, back into the darkness, back into the void, to the delicate whisper of my name.


	21. Undisclosed

My vision takes its sweet time coming into focus when I finally open my eyes again. The room is still bright. My head is still pounding. Saeyoung is still dead.

 

I lay there indefinitely, considering this thought. A life without Saeyoung. Though it’s only been a little over a year since we’ve been together, a minuscule fraction out of all the years I’ve even been alive, he has impacted me so much that I cannot imagine a life without him now. He came at a time when I needed him the most. The light of day to my perpetual night.

 

When I’d joined the RFA, I was at my lowest point. I had hit rock bottom. They were saviors in themselves.

 

But all the troubles of my past are irrelevant to this impossible reality that I am living now.

 

I glance around the room once regaining semi-composure, taking in my surroundings. Things are as I remember the last time I woke up; still hooked up to various machines like I’m a burden. Like my world has not crashed and crumbled and collapsed around me.

 

I reach for my phone sitting on the nightstand and glance at the screen. I have no notifications. This is unsurprising; all the closest people to me who would normally get in touch think that I’m currently unconscious.

 

But no notifications means that the phone’s background is clear and illuminated in all its glory; the glory of a Saeyoung selfie, cheerful and bright and radiating and alive.

 

I cannot endure the thought of Saeyoung not being around. The pain is crippling. I retract to a fetal position, recalling my outburst from before, and struggle to overcome the wave of agony. I fight against it. It comes in pulses; when I think I’m okay, it comes back. Saeyoung is dead. Saeyoung is dead.

 

The monitor beside me once again starts to sync with my newly accelerated heartbeat, and I glare at it despite my whimpering form. Really? Now is not the time and I am not in the mood.

 

Unkeen on having a flurry of company in the room at this moment, I unplug the electrocardiogram from the wall. The room instantly falls silent, and I sigh with immediate relief.

 

My pain has reduced to a dull but persistent ache, and I try to pace my breathing alongside it. I laugh at my brain’s attempt at thinking rationally. There is no rational. Saeyoung is dead.

 

There is movement just outside my door, and I groan that I wasn’t quick enough in my earlier actions. But the door slides open, allowing entry to someone.

 

Saeran.

 

My heart does not flutter when I see him. My world is not any less dark. I feel exceptionally indifferent at his sudden appearance.

 

We make eye contact. I don’t attempt to see his innermost depths as I once did through his somehow still-bright cyan eyes. His eyes are not butterscotch, and any eyes that aren’t the warm, smooth butterscotch tone that I yearn to see are no eyes for me.

 

Silently Saeran makes his way over to my bedside and places a hand on mine. My skin does not burst into flames.

 

“Hey,” he says, and he’s scrutinizing me carefully. I recognize the expression immediately - he’s carefully gauging my responses to everything. Analyzing.

 

I know it well because I do it well.

 

“Hey.” It’s a closed-ended, short response. I’m very much against any kind of conversation, but I don’t directly turn him away. If he’s hurt by my lack of eagerness to communicate, he hides it well.

 

Saeran’s eyes dart between the various machines at my bedside, closely observing. He’s making sure I’m doing well, but I’m not. No amount of medicine or miracle can cure the void inside of me at this moment. Except for, of course, the miracle of bringing Saeyoung back to life. But that is impossible. And so my wellbeing is impossible.

 

“I know better than to ask how you’re feeling, because I know,” Saeran says. He isn’t looking at me; rather, he’s watching his thumb trace circles on the back of my hand. I don’t pull away, but I wish he’d stop. His hand is not Saeyoung’s hand. “But I’m here for you. You know that.”

 

I chew on my lip to avoid saying something I might regret. Such as, I don’t particularly care if Saeran is here for me. He isn’t Saeyoung. But I bite my tongue too. He only wants to help.

 

Too bad I can’t be helped.

 

“I know” is the response I settle for, and seemingly satisfied, Saeran sinks back into the now awkward silence that hangs between us.

 

It’s undeniable that the presence of someone else is comforting, but at the same time, I just want to be alone. I just want to grieve. Every breath pains me to execute, and I have to stifle a sob every time. I need time alone to determine how I’m going to conjure the strength or where I’m going to find it to get through this.

 

We sit together, and we sit some more. I don’t count the time with Saeran’s heartbeats that I can feel through his tight grip on my hand. I just stare at it. His soft yet supple grip on mine, the kind that just a week ago would send me running for the hills, away from the overwhelming emotion that he somehow made me feel. But everything positive is clouded by everything negative.

 

Saeran’s once positive voice that once brought me immense joy breaks the silence again. “Can I… get you anything?”

 

 _Saeyoung._ “No, thank you,” I curtly reply.

 

We sit some more.

 

The finite shift of the shadows cast in the room are the only indication of the passing of time, because I refuse to look at the clock, but I’m overly observant of everything else. Every movement in the room summons my gaze, and my eyes flicker to it, urging for it to be Saeyoung emerging from the bathroom, or coming out from under the sink, or leaving the wardrobe dressed in what I can only assume are my clothes hanging in there. But he never does. Of course he doesn’t.

 

Saeran and I are sitting so still that when his phone vibrates in his pocket, I can feel it. He keeps his steady hold on me, and instead shifts awkwardly to use his hand opposite of the pocket the phone is contained in to attempt to pull it out. With a glance at the screen and a sigh, he holds it to his ear. “What is it?”

 

I hear a voice that I recognize at Zen’s, coming muffled but distinct through the earpiece. Saeran, noticing recognition on my face, discreetly moves his fingers to lower the volume on his phone, and now I can’t hear anything. _What?_

 

“No, I haven’t,” Saeran spits suddenly, catching me off guard. “You’re not my keeper.” His eyes skim over me again, but I sense this action rather than feel it, since I’ve averted my gaze from his face. It’s obvious they’re talking about me, and that I can’t know what it is, for whatever reason. “She’s fine.” Yup, suspicion confirmed. “No, I can’t stop you, but…” Saeran’s voice trails off, and there’s a pause during which he releases my hand suddenly to pinch the bridge of his nose, in clear frustration. “It’s obvious you’re going to do what you want.” Another pause. “I don’t plan to, at all.” Another pause, this one longer and drawn out, and Saeran’s expressions suggest that Zen is yelling at him through the phone. Suddenly, he wears a look of pure malice. “Are you crazy!?” he exclaims, and I jump with surprise at the sudden outburst. He looks apologetically over at me, and places his hand back over mine, rubbing it comfortingly. “Don’t even fucking think about it, Zen, you must be out of your mind--” He stops speaking abruptly, and pulls the phone away from his ear. Zen has hung up.

 

Saeran lets out a long, drawn-out, frustrated groan. I don’t say anything, I just watch him go through the motions of frustration that I know all too well as a result of Zen’s antics. But his emotions don’t easily dissipate. His shoulders remain tense, and his face is still flushed. His caressing of my hand is stiff.

 

“What’s the matter?” I ask softly. Saeran looks up at me. His eyes have glossed over, and are unfocused on me. He’s having an intense internal debate with himself. “Hey, hey,” I whisper hoarsely, reaching out for him, in my best attempt to be comforting even though he’s not me and the one who lost the love of their life --

 

I freeze with my hand still in the air. Stupid. _Stupid!_ I am a selfish bitch. Of _course_ he didn’t lose the love of his life…

 

He lost his last remaining family member.

 

Saeran is grieving too.

 

Here I was, wallowing in self-pity and woe is me and the mentality that nothing bad ever happens to anyone but me, while the twin brother of my now-dead boyfriend and possibly someone I was desperately in love with under different circumstances, sits before me, doing everything in his power to comfort me; while he, too, must be tearing at the seams, withering away from the inside out.

 

I’m a horrible fucking person. Maybe I deserved to lose the most important thing in the world to me. Maybe I’m even the one who deserves to be dead.

 

“Don’t say that.” I look up, and Saeran’s eyes are entirely fixated on me. He’s… talking to me? “Don’t ever fucking say or even think anything like that. You know that’s not true.”

 

_Saeran is the one who somehow knows what I’m thinking all the time._

 

“I--” But he shakes his head, ever so slightly, and I take the hint to not say anything further.

 

I am hurting. Saeran is hurting. Because Saeyoung is dead.

 

This entire time, I was averse to feeling anything toward Saeran at all; my emotions and anything I once felt toward him were completely overshadowed by what I felt about Saeyoung’s death. I had subconsciously hoped to subtly push him away, because what I felt for him was wrong. Because I felt guilty.

 

As if I could deny everything I felt for him. As if it just evaporated with these sudden occurrences.

 

No… now was the time that Saeran and I needed each other, more than ever.

 

As I gaze at him sitting in front of me, vulnerable and weak and quivering and the physical embodiment of what I feel at this moment and probably every moment for the rest of my life…

 

...of course I’m still in love with him. Of course we need each other.

 

I am 99% sure that Saeyoung would not want me to deny that, and would not want us to turn away from each other in this time of desperate need.

 

I still feel horribly guilty, but I would worry about the repercussions later. The physical symptoms of my affections have diminished for now, but I love Saeran, irrevocably so. And I would be here for him just as he is here for me. We would somehow endure this impossible feat. Together.

 

I raise the hand again that I’d suspended frozen in midair earlier, and make to soothingly touch Saeran’s shaking shoulder, but he tenses up at the action, and I immediately withdraw. What…?

 

“Zen is on his way over to talk to you,” comes his voice from his hunched-over form. Why is _Zen_ coming over to talk to me…?

 

“Because he wants to tell you something,” he answers my unasked question, but it’s still not really an answer. I’m not sure why whatever Zen has to say can’t wait.

 

“He wants to tell you something that I wasn’t going to tell you.” Oh? “Because I didn’t think--”

 

The door to the room suddenly bursts open, and in stumbles Zen, breathless from obvious running to get here. The irony and deja vu of the unfolding scene does not escape me, but now is not the time for humor.

 

“Babe,” he chokes out, approaching my bedside. “Babe, listen--”

 

“Zen, no--” Saeran is on his feet, menacingly approaching Zen, who remains unwavering, even as Saeran struggles to push him from the room.

 

“Get away from me,” Zen hisses, pressing a hand against Saeran’s chest to keep him at arm’s length, but they’re both very equal in strength, so they are just dancing with each other. “How can you keep this from her?”

 

“I don’t need to explain my every thought and motive to you--”

 

“Babe, Saeyoung is still alive,” Zen calls out from around Saeran’s forceful attempts to hush him. And the blood drains from every inch of my body.

 

“Saeyoung… is… still… alive…?” I echo, more to myself than the others, but Zen shouts “Yes!!” amidst a hand to the face, Saeran’s attempt to stifle the sound of his voice, but it’s the only word I need to hear.

 

Saeyoung is still alive.

 

These words are my fuel and my mantra as I fumble with the bedsheets around me. Why are there so many--!

 

Saeyoung is still alive.

 

I start ripping off the electrodes that attach me to the electrocardiogram I’d unplugged earlier.

 

Saeyoung is still alive.

 

I glance at the IV pole next to my bed. The IV is still in my arm, and the solution is still being administered in a steady drip flow. Not for long. I stop the flow of the IV and the drips come to a halt.

 

Saeyoung is still alive.

 

I do not hesitate for a second longer before I yank the IV out of my arm.

 

I can’t do anything about the catheter that’s still inserted in me, however, unless I want to endure something very, very painful. So I swing my legs over the side of the bed, take the bag from where it hangs from the frame, and stand up.

 

Whoa.

 

I’m dizzy, really dizzy, because of course I am. I’ve just been bedbound for an indefinite number of days, partly due to dehydration, so of course I’m not going to be steady on my feet. Maybe I should sit back down, relax for a moment--

 

Saeyoung is still alive.

 

I’ve talked myself into it instantly, and decide that I’m perfectly capable of standing and walking after all. I make sure the hospital gown I’m stylishly donning is wrapped tightly around my form as I briskly surpass the arguing and brawling pair just by the door to the room; heh, they haven’t even noticed me. Hilarious. Not that I care.

 

Saeyoung is still alive.

 

I approach the nurse’s station determinedly. They aren’t going to be happy with me, I know that much. But I am standing my ground and will take nothing except Saeyoung’s face in front of me as an answer.

 

The nurse working intently on the computer smiles up at me as I near, but immediately frowns as she takes in my appearance and puts the pieces together. She opens her mouth to speak, but I cut her off before she even begins.

 

“Please tell me the location of Saeyoung Choi,” I request smoothly.

 

“Miss, you shouldn’t be up right now--”

 

“Saeyoung Choi?” I repeat. She can lecture me all she wants on hospital protocol as if I don’t already know. It’s not going to stop me.

 

“I-I can’t disclose that information--” Cute, she’s flustered.

 

“Actually, you can,” I correct her smoothly. “It’s not against the rules to tell a visitor the location of the patient that they wish to visit. And I wish to visit Saeyoung Choi. Now where is he?”

 

“I c-can’t, because--”

 

While the nurse babbles on with some excessive excuses, I actually attempt to piece together what she’s telling me, as well as what Zen told me.

 

Saeyoung is still alive.

 

Saeyoung is _still_ alive. Saeyoung is alive for now.

 

“Thank you,” I say sweetly, cutting off whatever sentence the nurse was in the middle of saying, as if she was any help at all, and I take off for the nearest staircase. Even as the nurse calls after me, “You can’t be out of your room like that!”, I don't stop running.

 

I will check every single room in this damn hospital if that's what it takes to find Saeyoung, but I don't have to. I have analyzed the clues and I know exactly where he is.

 

I approach the speaker next to the doors restricting the public from ICU access. I'm not leaving here until they let me in. 

 

"Can I help you?" comes a cool voice through the speaker. 

 

"I'm here to see a patient by the name of Saeyoung Choi," I state confidently and calmly. The nurse gives affirmation, and I step aside as the doors swing open. 

 

Intensive care units usually only have a very limited number of beds, so it shouldn't be hard to track down Saeyoung. As I enter the unit and start running, I ignore the looks that I receive from the staff on the floor. I have made it this far, nothing will stop me now--

 

Except... except for this. This is absolutely successful in halting me in my very path.

 

I collapse against something; it must be a wall or maybe it's a person or maybe it's the ground. My world is suddenly turned upside-down. I gasp with the choking sobs that yield no tears, because I have none left. 

 

I am not sure what hurt me more: the great and terrible excruciating, crippling pain alongside thinking that Saeyoung was dead...

 

Or Saeyoung here, on this bed in front of me, as good as nonexistent without the innumerous machines eating for him, breathing for him, sustaining him; cold, a shell of a person, lifeless, as good as dead. 


	22. Contrite

It takes three doctors and five nurses, but I’ve been effectively rounded up and placed back in my room under careful supervision of the RFA. As if they can be trusted with anything.

 

After a lot of arguing and absolutely no surrendering to anything less than yes, I’ve also been properly detached from every hospital apparatus; I almost feel like a human again: but only almost. I lounge on the bed, drumming my fingers impatiently against the bed rail. The entirety of the RFA, save for one, is gathered around my bed, looking aptly uncomfortable. There is a talk impending, and I’m letting my hostility brew to be released as unrelentingly as possible. All I need is for Jumin to show up, but he’s considerably tardy, as ever.

 

The only reason I’m not currently breaking down right now is because I have been overtaken by ire.

 

Jumin waltzes into the room at half past five, not a wrinkle on his suit, not a hair on his head looking even slightly out of place. He must have been in a real hurry to get here. This ticks me off. Then again, everything does.

 

The nurse who has escorted him to the room is about to leave, but I speak up before she exits completely. “Close the door behind you, please,” I say as sweetly as I can manage through gritted teeth. She obliges, and the room falls silent, all eyes on me now.

 

I sit as upright in the bed as I can manage. My eyes flicker between the members of the group standing before me. I don’t know who to target first, who is responsible for this. I settle for speaking generally at them rather than focusing on one, to start.

 

“So, Saeyoung is not dead,” I begin matter-of-factly, like I’m reading a casual headline off of the paper. There are no signs of affirmation or denial, but I know the truth. I saw the truth. There are no signs of anything, in fact. Nobody even acknowledges that I’ve spoken. I try again.

 

“It appears that Saeyoung is still alive.”

 

_Cricket._

 

“Despite indirect reassurances that he was dead.”

 

_Cricket._

 

The silence irks me, it irks me a lot. I grip tightly onto the bedpost, and clench my teeth together. Every emotion that I feel right now is severely heightened in my sensitive state. I’m seething, and it requires every ounce of my control to maintain it. “Does someone in this room maybe want to recognize that I am speaking, and respond accordingly?”

 

Surprisingly, it’s Yoosung that pipes up. “I-I can’t imagine how you’re feeling, but I know this must be very difficult for you right now…”

 

Innocent, sheepish, doctor-in-training Yoosung braves my wrath in an attempt to therapeutically comfort me. Under normal circumstances, this would warm my heart a bit. But these aren’t normal circumstances.

 

“Yes, it’s difficult for me,” I answer, keeping the venom in my voice to a minimum. I have decided that this scheme is not primarily Yoosung’s doing. Next.

 

“Babe—” I look up at Zen who has chosen to be next in line. He falters only slightly under my intent stare, but is otherwise not shaken. It must be the actor in him, because I unregrettably am not pleasant at this moment. “B-babe, let’s try to think rationally—” Oh?

 

“Rationally?” I parrot, and Zen flushes, perhaps realizing exactly what he’s suggested. “Would you then, Lovely Zen, like to advise me on what is the _rational_ way to behave in this situation?”

 

He doesn’t say anything after that, smartly. I recall that he was the one who had rushed here to tell me the truth about what happened, after all, and conclude that this was not his arrangement either. Next.

 

Jaehee is twiddling her thumbs nervously, with discreet sideways glances at Jumin, a behavior uncharacteristic of her. Saeran is remarkably motionless. I silently weigh my options.

 

_Think rationally,_ Zen had said. I bite my lip and consider this. Maybe I’m being overly vicious. I don’t personally think that I am – I need answers, and this is how I know I can definitely get them without beating around the bush. But I can see how those from an outside perspective might disagree.

 

Rationally…

 

“I’m not interested in playing any games,” I carefully state, and this attracts the interest of Jumin’s eye contact, at least. I decide to focus on him to minimize the fraying of my nerves. Even though I’m conceding slightly, I am not backing down. “But please try to understand how I’m feeling right now, and please explain why it had to get to this point. What is going on?”

 

There’s another silence, but this one is… different. It seems calculated, like answers are being measured, rather than refused altogether. Jaehee all but inhales before speaking before the action warrants a glare from Jumin, but she powers through, ignoring him.

 

“Frankly, we did not think about each repercussion of our actions leading up to this moment,” says Jaehee. This statement confuses me, but it’s a start. A definite start, considering the narrowing of Jumin’s eyes. Yoosung just looks terrified. Zen seems to be blocking the conversation out altogether. Saeran still remains indifferent, which I don’t understand, but that’s another nut to crack later on. First things first.

 

I urge Jaehee to continue, but she freezes up, and doesn’t. Unfulfilled, I look for elaboration elsewhere. I don’t receive.

 

“Oh, for fuck’s sake—” I run a very frustrated hand through my disheveled hair, and make a note to tend to it immediately. No – I won’t be put off by something as trivial as unkempt hair right now. “Guys – will you just spill whatever it is you’re choosing to withhold from me, for whatever reason? I can’t possibly be any more broken than I am at this moment. Just tell me –”

 

“He’s not going to wake up,” interjects Jumin suddenly and firmly. What…?

 

“W-what did you just say?” I stammer, my confidence momentarily wavering.

 

“I said, he’s not going to wake up,” Jumin repeats like I didn’t hear him the first time, like the emotionless robot that he is. Even Saeran flinches at his audacity.

 

“I think she heard you,” Zen mumbles. Jumin ignores him.

 

I ignore everyone. My entire body has flooded with an icy sensation coupled with an inexplicable inability to comprehend Jumin’s words. He’s not going to wake up? Of course he’s going to wake up. He’s alive. I was there. I saw him.

 

“We were waiting for you to come to, because.” Jaehee swallows and I manage to look up at her from my struggling thoughts. She will be able to help me make sense out of this. “Because…”

 

But her words have the exact opposite effect that I need. Her trailing off is thick with the necessary implications of the truth, but unpleasant realization hits me like a truck; no, like a meteor knocking the earth from its rotation. _Saeyoung isn’t going to wake up._

 

It all clicks into place.

 

“No,” I say, and suddenly I’m out of the bed and on my feet. I seem to startle them all with my effrontery. “No.” It all makes sense now. “You didn’t want me to know that Saeyoung was still alive, so that I could come to terms with him being _dead_ , so that you could pull the plug on him, and so it wouldn’t hurt my delicate heart so much? Is that it?”

 

“That’s not it,” Saeran speaks at last, and his aqua gaze finally meets my own. Coming from anyone else, I might interpret this as insincere, but I know it’s authentic, coming from him, when he’s looking at me like this. “We just—I thought—maybe that you needed a little bit more time, to be more stable—”

 

“Did you not consider that maybe the information that Saeyoung was _not_ dead might make me a little more stable?” I offer. My quivering grasp on this bed frame is the only thing stopping me from running from this room, back out to my very _not currently dead_ boyfriend. That, and Saeran’s sharp stare keeping me rooted to this spot where I stand.

 

“It was beyond that,” Saeran says. “You were having these… breaks, I guess, and you weren’t even conscious,” he tells me, and that renders me speechless. I can only cock my head, and wait for him to continue. “You wouldn’t even remember it now, that’s how out of it you were. Nothing would have gotten through to you. It isn’t like our words had these magical healing powers. We had to be careful.”

 

“That’s not true,” I interpose, “I remember. I remember waking up and realizing I was in the hospital. I remember a mad rush of people coming in, trying to drug me, and I told them not to fucking do it, because I didn’t need drugs, I remember telling _you_ that Saeyoung was dead—” I see the confirmation of this memory on Saeran’s face, and internally I celebrate this victory. “—so don’t try and tell me that you couldn’t tell me right then and there that he wasn’t—”

 

“It still isn’t that simple,” Saeran mutters, getting visibly anxious at my reciprocating. I tell myself to settle down a little. Surely Saeran only means well by this. “That wasn’t the first time that that happened. I-I had no way to be sure. I needed to truly gauge what state you were in before I could make any radical decisions. And to be honest… our first and foremost concern was making sure _you_ were well in that moment. My first thought was not to start shouting at you that Saeyoung was alive.”

 

On the surface, this makes no sense, but deep down, I know that he’s right, as much as I hate to admit it. And I don’t say this out loud, but we exchange a glance which confirms this for the both of us. I hesitate before speaking again. “You’re still not pulling the plug on him.”

 

“That is not your choice to make,” comes Jumin’s oh-so-unempathetic voice.

 

“Jumin, you insensitive bastard—” Zen starts, but I think carefully about the truth behind Jumin’s words, however insensitive they are. Jumin is referring to Saeyoung’s power of attorney, the individual who makes the executive decisions regarding his health.

 

It’s not my choice to make…

 

Then who…?

 

My eyes lock with Saeran’s, and he, coming to the same conclusion as me, averts his gaze immediately.

 

“Saeran,” I plead. There’s no malice, nor edge, not anything but genuine beseeching saturating my voice. He doesn’t seem to hear me, or maybe he’s ignoring me. “Saeran!” I exclaim.

 

“I-I-we don’t have a choice,” he stutters.

 

“WE don’t, but YOU do,” I emphasize. Maybe I need to reiterate further that they are _not_ doing this to Saeyoung, no matter what.

 

“Saeyoung is a DNR, and—”

 

“Yes, a do not resuscitate,” I say. “Not, ‘do not take away his last chance at life’, if what you say is true about him not waking up. Which, he still may.”

 

“You do not understand—” Jumin attempts to cut in, but I glower at him.

 

“Be as tactless as you please, Jumin, but don’t try and preach about how much I don’t understand,” I spit. “I know all too well how this works. I probably know the best out of any of us, save for Yoosung.” I jab a finger in his general direction, and he cowers under my bitter gesture. I soften a bit at this and shoot him an apologetic look, before I revert to Jumin, acrimonious again. “I know this is unconventional, alright? But this is _Saeyoung_ we’re talking about. He might be dead to you, but only you. His spirit is stronger than you think. You truly believe he won’t pull through this? If only to spend the rest of his life harassing Elizabeth?”

 

The others are simply watching this exchange, with nothing to interpolate with. Tears have begun to brim at my eyes before I know it, and I swipe at them angrily; I’m mad at myself for coming across as weak, vulnerable, for crying. I’m not sad – I’m determined. They are not killing Saeyoung. Not while I’m standing on my own two feet in their path. Jumin opens and closes his mouth several times, clearly trying to weigh his options of which lecture will be best communicated to me. The answer is easy: none.

 

“He promised he would come back,” I shakily say through a sob. “He fucking promised.” The tears are coming full-stream now, and I can’t decide how much I care, but there’s no time to decide. “Saeyoung is still here, for now. He is still in there. His will to return to us and protect us and love us and bother the goddamn hell out of us for as long as he possibly can is stronger than your pathetic wills to fucking kill him off.”  
  


* * *

  


I’m nervous like a schoolgirl being picked up for her first date with the popular boy in the class. Fidgety, clammy, shaky, the whole bit. I never felt like this with Saeyoung, not even when we first met. I just _knew_ right from the very beginning. I knew everything. Maybe it’s the unknowing that is truly getting to me right now.

 

I smooth my hair and flatten the front of my clothes, as if it matters. As if Saeyoung’s golden eyes will open any moment and I’ll be in his direct field of vision. I need to look proper. I need to look my best.

 

The distance between Saeyoung’s bed and the entrance to the room feels like several thousand light years. There is no sound in the room but the steady, rhythmic beeping of the machines that are keeping him alive. _Everything beeps in a hospital._

 

I’m acutely aware of my breathing, and every time I recognize that I’m doing it, it hitches in my throat. The air in this room is too cold and my body wants to reject it; I want to curl up next to the figure lying lifelessly in the bed in front of me and miles away from me, but something tells me that it’s just as cold as everything else in this room.

 

After a lifetime’s worth of steps, I’m at Saeyoung’s bedside. This is not the reunion I’d awaited all this time. This proximity is the closest that we’ve been in weeks, but it feels wrong. I don’t feel his usual heat resonating from him, and up this close, I can see every imperfection marring his usual perfection. We always told each other that our imperfections were what made us perfect, but these… these were all wrong. There are too many bandages wrapped tightly around him everywhere, too many tubes inserted in every available orifice, too much navy and purple painted on every visible surface of his porcelain skin.

 

After a second of gasping for oxygen, I realize that I’d been holding my breath, as if any tiny wisp of air will break him.

 

My body, drained of all viable strength, sinks into the chair placed at his bedside before it sinks to the floor instead. It takes a little bit of time to muster the courage to take one his hands in my own, but I eventually do. It feels so small in my grasp, and as I’d assumed, ice cold. I squeeze gently.

 

I’m certain that he’s going to squeeze back, but of course he doesn’t.

 

“Saeyoung,” I whisper. I’m staring intently at his closed eyelids, sure that they will flutter open and he’ll stare intently back, but they don’t, and he doesn’t.

 

“Saeyoung,” I say again, and my voice cracks this time, but luckily, I catch myself just in time. I have already told myself that I wouldn’t cry in front of him. Even if he’s not conscious to witness it, they say that you can still hear while you’re in a coma. And so I’ve chosen to risk nothing.

 

When I’m more sure of my emotional stability, I speak again. I lightly stroke the back of his hand in sync with his name. The bruising and scabs peppered across his knuckles doesn’t escape my watchful, analytical scrutiny. “What did they do to you…” I wonder aloud in a soft tone. Of course, the thought of anyone doing anything to him sends rage coursing through me, but now isn’t the time to get angry.

 

“You didn’t break your promise to me,” I say in the same hushed tone, like anything above a whisper will send Saeyoung’s form crumbling. Or maybe I want to share this exchange with him and only him, and can't risk anyone else hearing. “You promised that you would be back, and you’re here. You’re right here, sweetie.” My strokes on the back of his hand are becoming more desperate, and I feel my emotions becoming more unsteady by the minute. _No, no, no._ But this needs to be said. He needs to know.

 

“But, please, wake up now,” I say, and the sentence catches in my throat unexpectedly. I swallow the lump that rises with it. “We used to fight because you insisted on being my knight in shining armor, right? And how I insisted I didn’t need to be protected? Yeah, well,” I chuckle to myself at how trivial every minor argument we ever had seems now, in hindsight, “that would be kind of hard for you to do now, like this, right? S-so, you need to wake up. Wake up and protect me all you want. From everything. I need you.”

 

This proposition coerces no movement from him. Not that I expected it to – but I silently pray with every fiber of my being every passing second.

 

“Saeyoung,” I say, growing frantic. “I took you for granted when you were here. I’ll never take you for granted again, okay? I promise. I promise, I will only ever love and cherish and worship and—and appreciate and value and, and I love you. That’s all I know now and that’s all I need to know. Because you’re worth nothing but every ounce of love that I can scrounge up from inside of me, and every other bit of love on this stupid planet – this planet that is nothing without you,” I hurriedly breathe, like I only have seconds to get this all out. Maybe I do. “I-I’m—I’m sorry, okay? I’m sorry for all the stupid fights. They don’t mean anything now, they didn’t mean anything then. I’m sorry for letting you fucking go off on this stupid mission, I-I should have fought harder, I should have fucking stopped you, if I fought _harder_ , you might have stayed home—” Wishful thinking in retrospect. I don’t know how true this actually is. “I-I’m—sorry for ever falling for Saeran, or thinking that I loved him, I don’t know, maybe I did, but maybe he was just there—I thought I did, but you’re here and I love you and I feel like I could never love anyone or anything like I love you right now, and I miss you and I _need_ you, Saeyoung, I do more than anything, so _please_ , wake _up_ —”

 

I feel tears threatening me again, and I remember my earlier promise to myself. I think that I can control it, but each passing second thinks otherwise. It pains me to draw back from Saeyoung’s form before me, but if I can’t be strong, I need to regain my composure before I can remain here with him.

 

“I’m sorry,” I whisper, bringing his hand to my lips and pressing my mouth against it. A tear manages to sneak past my defenses and trickle onto his skin. “I’ll be right back.”

 

Swiftly I exit the room, and make sure I’m out the door before I let the waterworks run rampant. _Fuck._ I’m being too weak during this valuable time I need to be spending in there with Saeyoung. _Pull it together._  
  
  
But this is a lot easier said than done. Through my sniffling and slobbering, I decide to take a walk and pull myself together.

 

I round the corner and very nearly collide with someone. “Oh! I’m sorry,” I hastily mumble, but through my blurred vision, I make out a shade of red I know all too well, albeit a little hazy. “Saeran, what are you doing here?” I say upon recognition. “I was just—”

 

But what I was just, he never finds out, because he’s already storming off in the direction that he was originally heading.

 

“Saeran?” I say, following quickly after him, haphazardly wiping my eyes to give myself a clearer view. “Hey!” He must be still upset about my arguing and hostility with the group before. I reach out to grab his wrist. “Is this about earlier? I’m sorry, you get that I wasn’t really in the right state of mind, right? And I’m still really not, but—”

 

Saeran whips around suddenly, and his eyes meet my own. But they aren’t the cool minty green I’m so accustomed to seeing by this point. They are abundantly icy. “You’re sorry, huh?” he sneers at something that appears funny to only him, and yanks his arm right out of my hold, before continuing along his former path. _Yes… I am sorry…?_

 

I mean to trail after him, insistent that he clarifies this private little joke he’s having with himself, that is making him act so cold, that I don’t understand…

 

_"I'm sorry for ever falling for Saeran....."_

 

…Until I do.


	23. Ensnared

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ahhhhhhhhhh!!!! My end of the school year hiatus is finally over! I am freeeeeeeeeee!! (until summer classes start, that is)
> 
> Thank you thank you for waiting so patiently for this chapter, assuming you are all still out there somewhere! I have been struggling so hard to get this thing written, and then school swallowed me whole, and spit me back out, and swallowed me up again, but the good news is this -- I am finally a college senior! One more year to go and I am so hyped!!
> 
> So I'm free for the next couple of weeks at least (depending on how hard this summer course wants to kick my booty), so let's get some chapters written boizz!!! I have forgotten how much I love this little universe. And I'm so happy to finally get my thoughts down in writing!
> 
> Also, I want to thank everyone who has left a comment on my story that I did not personally respond to. I appreciate you so so so much, and truly value every kind word that you all have to say. Those words are the fuel for this story! I hope everyone has been doing well, and please enjoy this next chapter!

I’ve swallowed more tears than I can count. I don’t know how I ended up in this mess, but here I am.

 

Through my mind flashes the words that I said to Saeyoung with what I thought was absolute sincerity. _“I’m sorry for ever falling for Saeran, or thinking that I loved him…”_

 

Or was it?

 

…who am I kidding. Of course it was.

 

I think…

 

Until Saeran had overheard me saying it. And then was it sincere? What _was_ it? What was I?

 

Guilty, that’s what. I was guilty of lying through my fucking teeth to my unconscious boyfriend.

 

I love Saeran, and I’m not sorry about it at all.

 

And now I’m back in my room, sitting on my bed, hugging my knees tightly to my chest and effectively slobbering all over myself. I don’t know from whom I want comfort right now, but I do know that Saeyoung can’t give it, and Saeran doesn’t want to.

 

And nobody comes in the room at all.

 

This is it. This is how it ends. Alone.

 

I stay like that for so long that I lose track. I notice the shadows in the room shifting to signal the sun setting in the sky, meaning I survived this day. Barely.

 

Actually, no, scratch that. I haven’t survived. This isn’t surviving. This impossibly heavy weight on my chest isn’t surviving, it’s suffocating.

 

I need to see Saeyoung. Even if it’s for naught, I just need to be in his presence.

 

Once the room is finally bathed entirely in darkness, I drag myself out of bed and across the room, and look at my pitiful self in the mirror. My hair is exceptionally disheveled, as is the rest of me. I’ve been wearing the same clothes all day, now drenched in my tears. I am a hot mess. Saeyoung might not be able to _see_ me, but he can’t see me like this… I think that makes sense? It does in my head.

 

In my pathetic slump, I make my way toward the bathroom and turn the shower on full blast, preparing to bathe for presumably the first time since I came to this hospital. Undressing, I curiously examine my own skin. I inspect the various bruises along my arms in various stages of healing, alongside the many failed IV sticks. I assume that they’re from my sad state prior to waking up for good, whatever that was about. I shake my head at myself for such inappropriate behavior, however justified it might have been at the time. The bathroom starts to fill with steam, and so I strip the rest of the way down to nothing and step inside the shower stall.

 

Oh, the hot water feels good on my worn body. I close my eyes and revel it for a couple of minutes, allowing the stream to overtake me. I want to stay here for the rest of the night, but I know that Saeyoung’s presence will be somewhat soothing, if nothing else. He is alive.

 

And then there is the question of what to do about Saeran, but I don’t have an answer to that, yet. I don’t even know if I’ll ever have one. I don’t know if I want one. Can I just ignore everything that happened between him and me? Do I want to?

 

Absentmindedly grabbing the bar of soap, I lather it and run my hands over my skin. Saeran… I am so happy that he exists in my life, but so not all at the same time. This is all so complicated.

 

Did I only develop feelings for him because Saeyoung was unavailable at the time? Or are they legitimate?

 

My lips tingle at the now-vague memory of the very innocent half-kiss that Saeran and I shared. How did I feel about that?

 

And… _other_ parts of me tingle at the not-so-vague memory of certain erotica featuring the mint-eyed twin. How did I feel about _that?_

 

The surprise that occurs at my skin turning sensitive under my touch answers my question. Eyes still closed, I repeat the action, and shiver, despite the hot water cascading around me. My hands follow the path of the water – from the back of my neck to the front, down my collarbones and out to my shoulders, down the center of my chest, between my breasts, across my nipples –

 

My eyes fly open at the sudden jolt of pleasure. No. Just no. I am about to go visit my _boyfriend_ on his potential _death bed_ , I need to get my shit together…

 

I ignore any residual thoughts still floating around in my head and hurriedly finish my shower, but I can’t ignore my body, still quivering, however slightly.  


* * *

  
I’m as nervous as the first time I visited Saeyoung, and for yet more unknown reasons. I don’t know what there even _is_ to be nervous about.

 

I’m standing in the mirror for the second time this evening, and decide that I’m ten times more aesthetically acceptable than I was the first time I stood here. I also feel ten times better, wearing new clothes and with my eyes considerably less puffy, even though I’ve cried out twice my body weight in tears. I breathe. That should be a good thing. I still stand by being dead set against crying in front of Saeyoung at all. I firmly believe that those in comas know exactly what’s going on around them.

 

One more deep breath and I finally pull myself away from the mirror. I can do this. I can do this. I already did this once before.

 

The entire walk to Saeyoung’s floor feels like it takes many years, but at last I reach his unit, and am granted access to the floor. The remaining distance to his room takes another twenty years, but I come to a dead halt outside his door.

 

It’s closed. Why is it closed?

 

I reach for the handle, and it’s locked.

 

But –

 

The worst thoughts imaginable flood through my head. He’s dead, he’s fucking dead, and I was not here for it, because I was wallowing in self-pity for the entire day. My blood is quick to turn icy cold, and my breathing quickens. I slam my back against the wall next to the door and try to focus on my respirations, because the last thing I need is to be restrained again for yet another psychotic break, when I’m perfectly fine.

 

Or am I? Saeyoung might be dead. Maybe I’m not.

 

I can’t deal with Saeyoung dying again.

 

As I gasp for proper amounts of oxygen, they cease the moment I hear speaking beyond the door. I freeze. Voices?

 

I strain to make out what the voices are saying, or who they even are, but the attempt is in vain. Okay, this is not necessarily bad. It could just be, I don’t know, Yoosung in there paying Saeyoung a visit.

 

Movement catches my eye, and I see one of the doctors approaching the nurse’s station across the way. I think of Zen’s suggestion to think _rationally_ , and I realize that I can find out answers quicker than I can spend time sulking against this wall.

 

“Excuse me?” I say as I walk toward the desk, and both the doctor and the nurse already sitting there look up at me, and the nurse smiles. “I—” I glance back at the door and swallow, before averting my gaze back to her. “Is he – well, what I mean is – the door to that room, it’s closed – I mean, it’s locked, is – is Saeyoung okay?” Wow, I suck at speaking so much, but the nurse’s smile is unwavering. Is it pitying? Sympathetic? She and the doctor exchange a glance, and I assume the worst, once again.

 

“He’s fine, dear,” the nurse says after exactly 8 seconds too long, and the air I’m breathing no longer struggles, but flows freely, and it’s like heaven. What a relief. “However, his brother went in the room a little while ago, and asked for some privacy, so of course we obliged. If you’d like, though, I am sure they would both make an exception for you –”

 

“No! No,” I exclaim quickly as the nurse’s finger hovers over the room’s intercom button, giving little consideration to exactly _what_ she has just said, and smile apologetically at my sudden outburst. “Sorry, I just – no, that’s alright, Saeran should have some time alone with him too. No need for me to be greedy, ha ha ha. I’ll come back in a bit.” I’m outrageously nervous, but the nurse is unfazed. She simply coos in agreement.

 

“That sounds good, honey,” she says, and her voice is sickly sweet. I guess that demeanor is kind of necessary, working on a unit such as this, but at this moment it’s a tad unsettling. Thanking her, and then nodding at both her and the doctor, I make my way back through the door I have just answered. Feeling their eyes on my back, I take extra care not to sulk.

  


* * *

  
I’m sitting in my room by the window when the knock on my door comes. I don’t know what time it is, but the lights of the city are twinkling intermittently, and it’s captivating and almost soothing to look upon. I can probably attribute this great room and view to Jumin’s connections, but I’m still feeling particularly cynical toward him. I don’t immediately budge from my seat to answer the door, or even call out, but it sounds again, and with a groan I stand up and stretch, before making my way over.

 

To say the least, I am utterly shocked to see Saeran there when I yank it open. I’m even more so when he silences me straightaway, when I’ve barely opened my mouth to speak, before sidling into the room and closes the door behind him. His brisk turning of the lock does not escape my gaze, however subtle he tried to be.

 

“Talk.”

 

Taken aback by his abrasiveness, I hesitate several times before I even open my mouth again, and even when I do, I have forgotten every word I ever knew. He snorts, and I frown.  
  
  
“I—I went to visit Saeyoung just now, and noticed that you were there –”

 

“Not about that,” he interjects, and again I’m taken aback. Frustrated, he runs a hand through his hair, and squeezes his eyes shut. When he reopens them, they are clearly avoiding mine. “Tell me about what you said.”

 

“What I said…” I whisper, my voice trailing off.

 

“Oh, don’t be so naïve,” Saeran snaps, and I’m less jolted by this reaction, because I expected it. “Don’t pretend like you don’t know that I heard exactly what you said.” Of course I knew, and of course he knew that I knew. I also knew this moment was inevitable.

 

“I know, I know,” I say quietly. “I just – don’t worry about it, okay?”

 

“Don’t worry about it? I’m going to fucking worry about it!” he shouts, and I cower under his raised voice. “What the fuck was all that time for, then? Wasted time? Wasted feelings? What the _fuck_ is happening in your head?”

 

“You’re mad,” I murmur, and he glares at me, because of course he fucking is. What _is_ happening in my head to say a stupid thing like that? “I—I don’t know what is going on in my head…”

 

“Clearly,” Saeran sneers, and I sigh, both in hurt and because he is so obviously right. For the first time in a long time, I am having a hard time talking to him. This is going to be so, so rough. “But I’m not leaving until you talk.”

 

“I—I’m sorry, I don’t know what to say– ” Saeran’s head snaps back with exasperation, his glower now heavenward, and I fidget with the ends of my hair. “I—I said I’m sorry!”

 

Saeran blows out an extended puff of hair, thick with aggravation. “J-just –” He breathes deeply, and his suddenly uncertain stutter grabs my attention, and I look up at him curiously. He has finally looked away. “Just – just please talk to me, okay? Tell me what I fucking did wrong. What did I do? What happened? What changed? Tell me.” The pain and desperation in his voice feels like a knife in my heart, but he hides it from his face well.

 

“I…… Saeran…” I look at him, and his face has already softened at the sound of me saying his name. This causes a stutter relapse in my breathing, as it had for many hours during my crying fit earlier. This conversation will most definitely bring on the waterworks again, I can feel it. “You… you didn’t do anything wrong…”

 

“Then why did you say it?” His voice is shaky now, and it just twists the knife a little more.

 

Why did I say it.

 

_“I-I’m—sorry for ever falling for Saeran, or thinking that I loved him, I don’t know, maybe I did, but maybe he was just there…”_

 

Why _did_ I say it?...

 

“Did you… mean it?” Another turn of the knife. He starts fiddling with the nail on one of his thumbs, and still does not meet my eyes. I know exactly what that means.

 

My hand hovers in the air of its own accord. I want to reach out and touch him, and pull him closer to me, and scream and cry to him that I didn’t mean it, that I couldn’t ever mean it, that I’m sorry, that I _need_ him and I can’t be without him and then I want to hold him and tell him that I love him with everything boiling up inside me right at this moment, with my passion for him at its peak—

 

Except that’s only half true. I can only love him with half of what is boiling up inside me, well, because...

 

Saeran’s voice interrupts the sound of Saeyoung’s name ringing in my ears.

 

“Well, did you?”

 

The question echoes in the room that’s entirely silent, save for our poor beating hearts.

 

“No, I didn’t.”

 

I did not realize how much I missed his cool aquamarine gaze until it was on mine at last. And with him looking at me like this, like I’m the only person he is seeing, like I’m the only person he _needs_ to see, I don’t know how I’ll ever hide behind my true feelings ever again.

 

The space between us is closed in an instant, and I can feel my heart pounding against each one of my pulse points. It’s unsettling and miraculous all at the same time, because it’s the first time in a long time that I’ve felt truly alive. And also for the first time in a long time… time stops, but for once, not in a bad way. It stops because the universe wants to prolong this moment. It needs to last forever. And somehow, I need it too.

 

There’s barely room for airflow between the pair of us, but I find that I don’t mind. Saeran doesn’t seem to mind either, gripping my wrists tightly like they’re his lifeline, and he presses his forehead against mine. Being this close, we are breathing the same oxygen, but I am remarkably unperturbed for someone whose brain repeatedly shouts the name of her comatose boyfriend at her. But when Saeran’s hands snake up my arms, across my shoulders, and up the sides of my neck, making me shiver, I’m slammed with the same overstimulation as hit me in the shower, and realization simultaneously.

 

“Wait, wait!” I am pretty certain that Saeran had been leaning in for the grand finale when I draw back. This uncertainty is however confirmed when he doesn’t immediately cease his actions, and instead slightly tightens his grasp on me, moving in once again. The sudden confidence is almost unnerving. “Saeran, wait! What are you doing?” I bite my lip at this statement, as it implies he is doing something wrong. Which of course he isn’t. “I—I mean, I don’t think I can do this?”

 

This time, he does withdraw, and looks at me with puzzlement. “You can, actually.”

 

My mind is suddenly overflowing with what-ifs, and while I technically can, I don’t know if I _can_ …

 

“But Saeyoung—”

 

Saeran reaches out to play with a stray piece of my hair, maybe to gauge just how much he can touch me. When I don’t react, he carries on. “Saeyoung told me we could, actually.”

 

I freeze, and the only thing moving is Saeran’s fingers still.

 

“What do you mean, Saeyoung told you we could…?”

 

“I talked to him,” Saeran says matter-of-factly, twirling my hair around his finger, and I purse my lips.

 

“Yes, well, I talked to him too, Saeran, but I hate to say that unfortunately, he didn’t answer –”

 

“Well, he answered me.” He’s still absentminded, and I’m watching him, gaping. Does he know what he’s saying? I ask him this, and he chuckles.

 

“Yes, I know what I’m saying,” he chortles, and my face scrunches as I try to piece together what exactly he is trying to tell me. Saeyoung answered him…?

 

And then, with his extraordinary capability to read my mind as he always has, Saeran leans in like he’s about to tell the world’s biggest secret, and says, “What I’m trying to tell you is, Saeyoung is awake…”

 

What did he just say?

 

“…and we talked for a bit…”

 

The shock factor was effective in rendering me motionless and speechless. Saeran’s fingers trail up my lock of hair, along with the rest of his hand, where it meets the nape of my neck. I’m indecisive of whether I don’t move because I can’t, or because I don’t want to. His fingers lightly stroking my skin feels amazing and like nothing at all. He tips my head back ever so slightly, and inches closer still – if I could just move, I could shift my head a tiny bit, and either escape his lips or touch mine to his –

 

“…oh, and I told him that I love you.”


End file.
